Isaiah 3-5
The Lord’s Judgment on Sinners in Zion
3 See now, the Lord, the Lord of Armies,
is going to take from Jerusalem and Judah
every kind of support
and their entire supply of food and water.
2 ⌞He will take their⌟ heroes and soldiers,
judges and prophets,
fortunetellers and statesmen,
3 military leaders and civilian leaders,
counselors, skilled workers, and experts in magic.
4 “I will make boys their leaders.
Children will govern them.”
5 People will oppress each other,
and everyone will oppress his neighbor.
The young will make fun of the old,
and common people will make fun of their superiors.
6 A person will grab one of his relatives
from his father’s family and say,
“You have a coat.
You’ll be our leader.
This pile of ruins will be under your control.”
7 When that day comes the relative will cry out,
“I’m not a doctor!
I don’t have any food or a coat in my home.
Don’t make me a leader of our family.”
8 Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen,
because what they say and what they do is against the Lord.
They are defiant in his honored presence.
9 The look on their faces will be held against them.
They boast about their sins,
which are like ⌞those of the people of⌟ Sodom.
They don’t even bother to hide them.
How horrible it will be for these people,
because they have brought disaster on themselves.
10 Tell the righteous that blessings will come to them.
They will taste the fruit of their labor.
11 How horrible it will be for the wicked! Disaster will strike them.
What they have done will be done to them.
12 “Children will oppress my people.
Women will rule them.
My people, your guides mislead you,
and you don’t know which way to go.”
13 The Lord takes his place in the courtroom.
He stands to judge his people.
14 The Lord presents his case to the respected leaders
and the officials of his people:
“You have burned down the vineyard!
Your houses are filled with goods stolen from the poor.”
15 The Almighty Lord of Armies asks,
“How can you crush my people
and grind the faces of the poor ⌞into the ground⌟?”
16 The Lord adds,
“The women of Zion are arrogant.
They walk with their noses in the air,
making seductive glances,
taking short little steps,
jingling the ankle bracelets on their feet.”
17 The Lord will cause sores ⌞to appear⌟
on the heads of the women of Zion,
and the Lord will make their foreheads bare.
18 On that day the Lord will take away their fine things: jingling anklets, headbands, crescent-shaped necklaces, 19 pendants, bracelets, scarfs, 20 hats, ankle bracelets, blouses, perfume boxes, charms, 21 signet rings, nose rings, 22 fine robes, coats, shawls, purses, 23 mirrors, underwear, headdresses, and veils.
24 Instead of the smell of perfume, there will be the smell of decay.
They will wear ropes instead of belts.
They will have bald heads instead of beautiful hair.
They will wear sackcloth instead of expensive clothes.
Their beauty will be scarred.[a]
25 ⌞Women,⌟ your warriors will die in combat.
Your mighty men will die in battle.
26 The gates of Zion will cry and grieve,
and Zion will sit on the ground, exhausted.
4 When that day comes, seven women will grab one man and say,
“We’ll eat our own food and provide our own clothes.
Just let us marry you for your name.
Take away our disgrace.”
The Lord’s New Glory for Zion
2 When that day comes, the branch of the Lord
will be beautiful and wonderful.
The fruit of the land
will be the pride and joy of Israel’s survivors.
3 Then whoever is left in Zion and whoever remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. 4 The Lord will wash away the filth of Zion’s people.[b] He will clean bloodstains from Jerusalem with a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. 5 The Lord will create a cloud of smoke during the day and a glowing flame of fire during the night over the whole area of Mount Zion and over the assembly. His glory will cover everything. 6 It will be a shelter from the heat during the day as well as a refuge and hiding place from storms and rain.
The Song about the Vineyard
5 Let me sing a lovesong to my beloved about his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.
2 He dug it up, removed its stones,
planted it with the choicest vines,
built a watchtower in it,
and made a winepress in it.
Then he waited for it to produce good grapes,
but it produced only sour, wild grapes.
3 Now then, you inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard!
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than what I have already done for it?
When I waited for it to produce good grapes,
why did it produce only sour, wild grapes?
5 Now then, let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard.
I will tear away its hedge so that it can be devoured
and tear down its wall so that it can be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland.
It will never be pruned or hoed.
Thorns and weeds will grow in it,
and I will command the clouds not to rain on it.
7 The vineyard of the Lord of Armies is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah are the garden of his delight.
He hoped for justice but saw only slaughter,
for righteousness but heard only cries of distress.
Six Sins Condemned
8 How horrible it will be for you
who acquire house after house and buy field after field
until there’s nothing left
and you have to live by yourself in the land.
9 With my own ears I heard the Lord of Armies say,
“Many houses will become empty.
Large, beautiful houses will be without people to live in them.
10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only six gallons of wine,
and two quarts of seed will produce only four quarts of grain.”
11 How horrible it will be for those
who get up early to look for a drink,
who sit up late until they are drunk from wine.
12 At their feasts there are lyres and harps,
tambourines and flutes, and wine.
Yet, they don’t pay attention to what the Lord is doing
or see what his hands have done.
13 “My people will go into exile
because they don’t understand what I’m doing.
Honored men will starve,
and common people will be parched with thirst.”
14 That is why the grave’s appetite increases.
It opens its mouth very wide
so that honored people and common people will go down into it.
Those who are noisy and joyous will go down into it.
15 People will be brought down. Everyone will be humbled.
And the eyes of arrogant people will be humbled.
16 The Lord of Armies will be honored when he judges.
The holy God will show himself to be holy when he does what is right.
17 Then lambs will graze as if they were in their own pasture,
and foreigners will eat among the ruins of the rich.
18 How horrible it will be for those
who string people along with lies and empty promises,
whose lives are sinful.
19 They say,
“Let God hurry and quickly do his work
so that we may see what he has in mind.
Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel happen quickly
so that we may understand what he is doing.”
20 How horrible it will be for those
who call evil good and good evil,
who turn darkness into light and light into darkness,
who turn what is bitter into something sweet
and what is sweet into something bitter.
21 How horrible it will be for those
who think they are wise
and consider themselves to be clever.
22 How horrible it will be for those
who are heroes at drinking wine,
who are champions at mixing drinks,
23 who declare the guilty innocent for a bribe,
who take away the rights of righteous people.
The Lord Will Use Another Nation to Punish His People
24 As flames burn up straw
and dry grass shrivels in flames,
so their roots will rot,
and their blossoms will blow away like dust.
They have rejected the teachings of the Lord of Armies
and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25 That’s why the anger of the Lord burns hot against his people,
and he is ready to use his power to strike them down.
The hills tremble,
and dead bodies lie like garbage in the streets.
Even after all this, his anger has not disappeared,
and he is still ready to use his power.
26 The Lord raises up a flag for the nations far away.
With a whistle he signals those at the ends of the earth.
Look, they are coming very quickly!
27 None of them grow tired or stumble.
None of them slumber or sleep.
The belts on their waists aren’t loose
or their sandal straps broken.
28 Their arrows are sharpened; all their bows are ready to shoot.
Their horses’ hoofs are as hard as flint.
Their chariot wheels are as quick as the wind.
29 They roar like a lioness.
They growl like a young lion.
They growl as they snatch their prey
and carry it off to where no one can rescue it.
30 On that day they will roar over their prey
as the sea roars.
If they look at the land,
they will see only darkness and distress.
Even the light will be darkened by thick clouds.
Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God’s Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
2 Corinthians 11:1-15
Paul Contrasts Himself with False Apostles
11 I want you to put up with a little foolishness from me. I’m sure that you will. 2 I’m as protective of you as God is. After all, you’re a virgin whom I promised in marriage to one man—Christ. 3 However, I’m afraid that as the snake deceived Eve by its tricks, so your minds may somehow be lured away from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 When someone comes to you telling about another Jesus whom we didn’t tell you about, you’re willing to put up with it. When you receive a spirit that is different from the Spirit you received earlier, you’re also willing to put up with that. When someone tells you good news that is different from the Good News you already accepted, you’re willing to put up with that too.
5 I don’t think I’m inferior in any way to your super-apostles. 6 Even though I’m not good with words, I know what I’m talking about. Timothy and I have made this clear to you in every possible way.
7 Did I commit a sin when I humbled myself by telling you the Good News of God free of charge so that you could become important? 8 I robbed other churches by taking pay from them to serve you. 9 When I was with you and needed something, I didn’t bother any of you for help. My friends from the province of Macedonia supplied everything I needed. I kept myself from being a financial burden to you in any way, and I will continue to do that.
10 As surely as I have Christ’s truth, my bragging will not be silenced anywhere in Greece. 11 Why? Because I don’t love you? God knows that I do love you. 12 But I’ll go on doing what I’m doing. This will take away the opportunity of those people who want to brag because they think they’re like us. 13 People who brag like this are false apostles. They are dishonest workers, since they disguise themselves as Christ’s apostles. 14 And no wonder, even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it’s not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants who have God’s approval. In the end they will get what they deserve.
Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God’s Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
Psalm 53
For the choir director; according to mahalath,[a] a maskil by David.
53 Godless fools say in their hearts,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt.
They do disgusting things.
There is no one who does good things.
2 God looks down from heaven on Adam’s descendants
to see if there is anyone who acts wisely,
if there is anyone who seeks help from God.
3 Everyone has fallen away.
Together they have become rotten to the core.
No one, not even one person, does good things.
4 Are all those troublemakers,
those who devour my people as if they were devouring food,
so ignorant that they do not call on God?
5 There they are—panic-stricken—
⌞but⌟ there was no reason to panic,
because God has scattered the bones
of those who set up camp against you.
You put them to shame.
After all, God has rejected them.
6 If only salvation for Israel would come from Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice.
Israel will be glad.
Footnotes:
- 53:0 Unknown musical term.
Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God’s Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
Proverbs 22:28-29
28 Do not move an ancient boundary marker
that your ancestors set in place.
29 Do you see a person who is efficient in his work?
He will serve kings.
He will not serve unknown people.
Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God’s Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.