Praise to God

25 O Lord, You are my God.
(A)I will exalt You,
I will praise Your name,
(B)For You have done wonderful things;
(C)Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
For You have made (D)a city a ruin,
A fortified city a ruin,
A palace of foreigners to be a city no more;
It will never be rebuilt.
Therefore the strong people will (E)glorify You;
The city of the [a]terrible nations will fear You.
For You have been a strength to the poor,
A strength to the needy in his distress,
(F)A refuge from the storm,
A shade from the heat;
For the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
You will reduce the noise of aliens,
As heat in a dry place;
As heat in the shadow of a cloud,
The song of the terrible ones will be [b]diminished.

And in (G)this mountain
(H)The Lord of hosts will make for (I)all people
A feast of [c]choice pieces,
A feast of [d]wines on the lees,
Of fat things full of marrow,
Of well-refined wines on the lees.
And He will destroy on this mountain
The surface of the covering cast over all people,
And (J)the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will (K)swallow up death forever,
And the Lord God will (L)wipe away tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.

And it will be said in that day:
“Behold, this is our God;
(M)We have waited for Him, and He will save us.
This is the Lord;
We have waited for Him;
(N)We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”

10 For on this mountain the hand of the Lord will rest,
And (O)Moab shall be trampled down under Him,
As straw is trampled down for the refuse heap.
11 And He will spread out His hands in their midst
As a swimmer reaches out to swim,
And He will bring down their (P)pride
Together with the trickery of their hands.
12 The (Q)fortress of the high fort of your walls
He will bring down, lay low,
And bring to the ground, down to the dust.

A Song of Salvation

26 In (R)that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;
(S)God will appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks.
(T)Open the gates,
That the righteous nation which [e]keeps the truth may enter in.
You will keep him in perfect (U)peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
Trust in the Lord forever,
(V)For in Yah, the Lord, is [f]everlasting strength.
For He brings [g]down those who dwell on high,
(W)The lofty city;
He lays it low,
He lays it low to the ground,
He brings it down to the dust.
The foot shall [h]tread it down—
The feet of the poor
And the steps of the needy.”

The way of the just is uprightness;
(X)O Most Upright,
You [i]weigh the path of the just.
Yes, (Y)in the way of Your judgments,
O Lord, we have (Z)waited for You;
The desire of our soul is for Your name
And for the remembrance of You.
(AA)With my soul I have desired You in the night,
Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
For when Your judgments are in the earth,
The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

10 (AB)Let grace be shown to the wicked,
Yet he will not learn righteousness;
In (AC)the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of the Lord.
11 Lord, when Your hand is lifted up, (AD)they will not see.
But they will see and be ashamed
For [j]their envy of people;
Yes, the fire of Your enemies shall devour them.

12 Lord, You will establish peace for us,
For You have also done all our works [k]in us.
13 O Lord our God, (AE)masters besides You
Have had dominion over us;
But by You only we make mention of Your name.
14 They are dead, they will not live;
They are deceased, they will not rise.
Therefore You have punished and destroyed them,
And made all their memory to (AF)perish.
15 You have increased the nation, O Lord,
You have (AG)increased the nation;
You are glorified;
You have expanded all the [l]borders of the land.

16 Lord, (AH)in trouble they have visited You,
They poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them.
17 As (AI)a woman with child
Is in pain and cries out in her [m]pangs,
When she draws near the time of her delivery,
So have we been in Your sight, O Lord.
18 We have been with child, we have been in pain;
We have, as it were, [n]brought forth wind;
We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth,
Nor have (AJ)the inhabitants of the world fallen.

19 (AK)Your dead shall live;
Together with [o]my dead body they shall arise.
(AL)Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust;
For your dew is like the dew of herbs,
And the earth shall cast out the dead.

Take Refuge from the Coming Judgment

20 Come, my people, (AM)enter your chambers,
And shut your doors behind you;
Hide yourself, as it were, (AN)for a little moment,
Until the indignation is past.
21 For behold, the Lord (AO)comes out of His place
To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
The earth will also disclose her [p]blood,
And will no more cover her slain.

Israel Will Be Restored

27 In that day the Lord with His severe sword, great and strong,
Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
(AP)Leviathan that twisted serpent;
And He will slay (AQ)the reptile that is in the sea.

The Restoration of Israel

In that day (AR)sing to her,
(AS)“A vineyard of [q]red wine!
(AT)I, the Lord, keep it,
I water it every moment;
Lest any hurt it,
I keep it night and day.
Fury is not in Me.
Who would set (AU)briers and thorns
Against Me in battle?
I would go through them,
I would burn them together.
Or let him take hold (AV)of My strength,
That he may (AW)make peace with Me;
And he shall make peace with Me.”

Those who come He shall cause (AX)to take root in Jacob;
Israel shall blossom and bud,
And fill the face of the world with fruit.

(AY)Has He struck [r]Israel as He struck those who struck him?
Or has He been slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by Him?
(AZ)In measure, by sending it away,
You contended with it.
(BA)He removes it by His rough wind
In the day of the east wind.
Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered;
And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin:
When he makes all the stones of the altar
Like chalkstones that are beaten to dust,
[s]Wooden images and incense altars shall not stand.

10 Yet the fortified city will be (BB)desolate,
The habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness;
There the calf will feed, and there it will lie down
And consume its branches.
11 When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off;
The women come and set them on fire.
For (BC)it is a people of no understanding;
Therefore He who made them will (BD)not have mercy on them,
And (BE)He who formed them will show them no favor.

12 And it shall come to pass in that day
That the Lord will thresh,
From the channel of [t]the River to the Brook of Egypt;
And you will be (BF)gathered one by one,
O you children of Israel.

13 (BG)So it shall be in that day:
(BH)The great trumpet will be blown;
They will come, who are about to perish in the land of Assyria,
And they who are outcasts in the land of (BI)Egypt,
And shall (BJ)worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

Woe to Ephraim and Jerusalem

28 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim,
Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower
Which is at the head of the [u]verdant valleys,
To those who are overcome with wine!
Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one,
(BK)Like a tempest of hail and a destroying storm,
Like a flood of mighty waters overflowing,
Who will bring them down to the earth with His hand.
The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim,
Will be trampled underfoot;
And the glorious beauty is a fading flower
Which is at the head of the [v]verdant valley,
Like the first fruit before the summer,
Which an observer sees;
He eats it up while it is still in his hand.

In that day the Lord of hosts will be
For a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty
To the remnant of His people,
For a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment,
And for strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

But they also (BL)have erred through wine,
And through intoxicating drink are out of the way;
(BM)The priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink,
They are swallowed up by wine,
They are out of the way through intoxicating drink;
They err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
For all tables are full of vomit and filth;
No place is clean.

“Whom(BN) will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
10 (BO)For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”

11 For with (BP)stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
12 To whom He said, “This is the (BQ)rest with which
You may cause the weary to rest,”
And, “This is the refreshing”;
Yet they would not hear.
13 But the word of the Lord was to them,
“Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little,”
That they might go and fall backward, and be broken
And snared and caught.

14 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scornful men,
Who rule this people who are in Jerusalem,
15 Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,
And with Sheol we are in agreement.
When the overflowing scourge passes through,
It will not come to us,
(BR)For we have made lies our refuge,
And under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

A Cornerstone in Zion

16 Therefore thus says the Lord God:

“Behold, I lay in Zion (BS)a stone for a foundation,
A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
Whoever believes will not act hastily.
17 Also I will make justice the measuring line,
And righteousness the plummet;
The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
And the waters will overflow the hiding place.
18 Your covenant with death will be annulled,
And your agreement with Sheol will not stand;
When the overflowing scourge passes through,
Then you will be trampled down by it.
19 As often as it goes out it will take you;
For morning by morning it will pass over,
And by day and by night;
It will be a terror just to understand the report.”

20 For the bed is too short to stretch out on,
And the covering so narrow that one cannot wrap himself in it.
21 For the Lord will rise up as at Mount (BT)Perazim,
He will be angry as in the Valley of (BU)Gibeon—
That He may do His work, (BV)His awesome work,
And bring to pass His act, His [w]unusual act.
22 Now therefore, do not be mockers,
Lest your bonds be made strong;
For I have heard from the Lord God of hosts,
(BW)A [x]destruction determined even upon the whole earth.

Listen to the Teaching of God

23 Give ear and hear my voice,
Listen and hear my speech.
24 Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow?
Does he keep turning his soil and breaking the clods?
25 When he has leveled its surface,
Does he not sow the black cummin
And scatter the cummin,
Plant the wheat in rows,
The barley in the appointed place,
And the [y]spelt in its place?
26 For He instructs him in right judgment,
His God teaches him.

27 For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
Nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cummin;
But the black cummin is beaten out with a stick,
And the cummin with a rod.
28 Bread flour must be ground;
Therefore he does not thresh it forever,
Break it with his cartwheel,
Or crush it with his horsemen.
29 This also comes from the Lord of hosts,
(BX)Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in [z]guidance.

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 25:3 terrifying
  2. Isaiah 25:5 humbled
  3. Isaiah 25:6 Lit. fat things
  4. Isaiah 25:6 wines matured on the sediment
  5. Isaiah 26:2 Or remains faithful
  6. Isaiah 26:4 Or Rock of Ages
  7. Isaiah 26:5 low
  8. Isaiah 26:6 trample
  9. Isaiah 26:7 Or make level
  10. Isaiah 26:11 Or Your zeal for the people
  11. Isaiah 26:12 Or for us
  12. Isaiah 26:15 Or ends
  13. Isaiah 26:17 sharp pains
  14. Isaiah 26:18 given birth to
  15. Isaiah 26:19 So with MT, Vg.; Syr., Tg. their dead bodies; LXX those in the tombs
  16. Isaiah 26:21 Or bloodshed
  17. Isaiah 27:2 So with MT (Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica), Bg., Vg.; MT (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), some Heb. mss., LXX delight; Tg. choice vineyard
  18. Isaiah 27:7 Lit. him
  19. Isaiah 27:9 Heb. Asherim, Canaanite deities
  20. Isaiah 27:12 The Euphrates
  21. Isaiah 28:1 Lit. valleys of fatness
  22. Isaiah 28:4 Lit. valley of fatness
  23. Isaiah 28:21 Lit. foreign
  24. Isaiah 28:22 Lit. complete end
  25. Isaiah 28:25 rye
  26. Isaiah 28:29 sound wisdom

Concluding Moral Directions

13 Let (A)brotherly love continue. (B)Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing (C)some have unwittingly entertained angels. (D)Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also.

(E)Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; (F)but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, (G)“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we may boldly say:

(H)“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?”

Concluding Religious Directions

Remember those who [a]rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is (I)the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried [b]about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might [c]sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. 13 Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing (J)His reproach. 14 For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. 15 (K)Therefore by Him let us continually offer (L)the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, (M)the fruit of our lips, [d]giving thanks to His name. 16 (N)But do not forget to do good and to share, for (O)with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

17 (P)Obey those who [e]rule over you, and be submissive, for (Q)they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

Prayer Requested

18 (R)Pray for us; for we are confident that we have (S)a good conscience, in all things desiring to live honorably. 19 But I especially urge you to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner.

Benediction, Final Exhortation, Farewell

20 Now may (T)the God of peace (U)who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, (V)that great Shepherd of the sheep, (W)through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 make you [f]complete in every good work to do His will, (X)working in [g]you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

22 And I appeal to you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words. 23 Know that our brother Timothy has been set free, with whom I shall see you if he comes shortly.

24 Greet all those who [h]rule over you, and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you.

25 Grace be with you all. Amen.

Footnotes

  1. Hebrews 13:7 lead
  2. Hebrews 13:9 NU, M away
  3. Hebrews 13:12 set apart
  4. Hebrews 13:15 Lit. confessing
  5. Hebrews 13:17 lead
  6. Hebrews 13:21 perfect
  7. Hebrews 13:21 NU, M us
  8. Hebrews 13:24 lead

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