A Prophecy About Jerusalem

22 A prophecy against the Valley of Vision:

What troubles you now,
    that you have all gone up on the roofs,
²you town so full of commotion,
    you city of tumult and revelry?
Your slain were not killed by the sword,
    nor did they die in battle.
³All your leaders have fled together;
    they have been captured without using the bow.
All you who were caught were taken prisoner together,
    having fled while the enemy was still far away.
⁴Therefore I said, “Turn away from me;
    let me weep bitterly.
Do not try to console me
    over the destruction of my people.”

⁵The Lord, the LORD Almighty, has a day
    of tumult and trampling and terror
    in the Valley of Vision,
a day of battering down walls
    and of crying out to the mountains.
⁶Elam takes up the quiver,
    with her charioteers and horses;
    Kir uncovers the shield.
⁷Your choicest valleys are full of chariots,
    and horsemen are posted at the city gates.

⁸The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah,
    and you looked in that day
    to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest.
⁹You saw that the walls of the City of David
    were broken through in many places;
you stored up water
    in the Lower Pool.
¹⁰You counted the buildings in Jerusalem
    and tore down houses to strengthen the wall.
¹¹You built a reservoir between the two walls
    for the water of the Old Pool,
but you did not look to the One who made it,
    or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.

¹²The Lord, the LORD Almighty,
    called you on that day
to weep and to wail,
    to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.
¹³But see, there is joy and revelry,
    slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,
    eating of meat and drinking of wine!
“Let us eat and drink,” you say,
    “for tomorrow we die!”

¹⁴The LORD Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: “Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,” says the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

¹⁵This is what the Lord, the LORD Almighty, says:

“Go, say to this steward,
    to Shebna the palace administrator:
¹⁶What are you doing here and who gave you permission
    to cut out a grave for yourself here,
hewing your grave on the height
    and chiseling your resting place in the rock?

¹⁷“Beware, the LORD is about to take firm hold of you
    and hurl you away, you mighty man.
¹⁸He will roll you up tightly like a ball
    and throw you into a large country.
There you will die
    and there the chariots you were so proud of
    will become a disgrace to your master’s house.
¹⁹I will depose you from your office,
    and you will be ousted from your position.

²⁰“In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah.²¹I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah.²²I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.²³I will drive him like a peg into a firm place; he will become a seat of honor for the house of his father.²⁴All the glory of his family will hang on him: its offspring and offshoots—all its lesser vessels, from the bowls to all the jars.

²⁵“In that day,” declares the LORD Almighty, “the peg driven into the firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down.” The LORD has spoken.

A Prophecy Against Tyre

23 A prophecy against Tyre:

Wail, you ships of Tarshish!
    For Tyre is destroyed
    and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
    word has come to them.

²Be silent, you people of the island
    and you merchants of Sidon,
    whom the seafarers have enriched.
³On the great waters
    came the grain of the Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre,
    and she became the marketplace of the nations.

⁴Be ashamed, Sidon, and you fortress of the sea,
    for the sea has spoken:
“I have neither been in labor nor given birth;
    I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.”
⁵When word comes to Egypt,
    they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.

⁶Cross over to Tarshish;
    wail, you people of the island.
⁷Is this your city of revelry,
    the old, old city,
whose feet have taken her
    to settle in far-off lands?
⁸Who planned this against Tyre,
    the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants are princes,
    whose traders are renowned in the earth?
⁹The LORD Almighty planned it,
    to bring down her pride in all her splendor
    and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.

¹⁰Till your land as they do along the Nile,
    Daughter Tarshish,
    for you no longer have a harbor.
¹¹The LORD has stretched out his hand over the sea
    and made its kingdoms tremble.
He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
    that her fortresses be destroyed.
¹²He said, “No more of your reveling,
    Virgin Daughter Sidon, now crushed!

“Up, cross over to Cyprus;
    even there you will find no rest.”
¹³Look at the land of the Babylonians,
    this people that is now of no account!
The Assyrians have made it
    a place for desert creatures;
they raised up their siege towers,
    they stripped its fortresses bare
    and turned it into a ruin.

¹⁴Wail, you ships of Tarshish;
    your fortress is destroyed!

¹⁵At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

¹⁶“Take up a harp, walk through the city,
    you forgotten prostitute;
play the harp well, sing many a song,
    so that you will be remembered.”

¹⁷At the end of seventy years, the LORD will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.¹⁸Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the LORD; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the LORD, for abundant food and fine clothes.

The LORD’s Devastation of the Earth

24 See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth
    and devastate it;
he will ruin its face
    and scatter its inhabitants—
²it will be the same
    for priest as for people,
    for the master as for his servant,
    for the mistress as for her servant,
    for seller as for buyer,
    for borrower as for lender,
    for debtor as for creditor.
³The earth will be completely laid waste
    and totally plundered.
The LORD has spoken this word.

⁴The earth dries up and withers,
    the world languishes and withers,
    the heavens languish with the earth.
⁵The earth is defiled by its people;
    they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes
    and broken the everlasting covenant.
⁶Therefore a curse consumes the earth;
    its people must bear their guilt.
Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up,
    and very few are left.
⁷The new wine dries up and the vine withers;
    all the merrymakers groan.
⁸The joyful timbrels are stilled,
    the noise of the revelers has stopped,
    the joyful harp is silent.
⁹No longer do they drink wine with a song;
    the beer is bitter to its drinkers.
¹⁰The ruined city lies desolate;
    the entrance to every house is barred.
¹¹In the streets they cry out for wine;
    all joy turns to gloom,
    all joyful sounds are banished from the earth.
¹²The city is left in ruins,
    its gate is battered to pieces.
¹³So will it be on the earth
    and among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
    or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.

¹⁴They raise their voices, they shout for joy;
    from the west they acclaim the LORD’s majesty.
¹⁵Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD;
    exalt the name of the LORD, the God of Israel,
    in the islands of the sea.
¹⁶From the ends of the earth we hear singing:
    “Glory to the Righteous One.”

But I said, “I waste away, I waste away!
    Woe to me!
The treacherous betray!
    With treachery the treacherous betray!”
¹⁷Terror and pit and snare await you,
    people of the earth.
¹⁸Whoever flees at the sound of terror
    will fall into a pit;
whoever climbs out of the pit
    will be caught in a snare.

The floodgates of the heavens are opened,
    the foundations of the earth shake.
¹⁹The earth is broken up,
    the earth is split asunder,
    the earth is violently shaken.
²⁰The earth reels like a drunkard,
    it sways like a hut in the wind;
so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion
    that it falls—never to rise again.

²¹In that day the LORD will punish
    the powers in the heavens above
    and the kings on the earth below.
²²They will be herded together
    like prisoners bound in a dungeon;
they will be shut up in prison
    and be punished after many days.
²³The moon will be dismayed,
    the sun ashamed;
for the LORD Almighty will reign
    on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
    and before its elders—with great glory.

¹⁷“But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

¹⁹“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

Faith or Works of the Law

3 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.²I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?³Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?⁴Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?⁵So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?⁶So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

⁷Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.⁸Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”⁹So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Psalm 60

60 You have rejected us, God, and burst upon us;
    you have been angry—now restore us!
²You have shaken the land and torn it open;
    mend its fractures, for it is quaking.
³You have shown your people desperate times;
    you have given us wine that makes us stagger.
⁴But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner
    to be unfurled against the bow.

⁵Save us and help us with your right hand,
    that those you love may be delivered.
⁶God has spoken from his sanctuary:
    “In triumph I will parcel out Shechem
    and measure off the Valley of Sukkoth.
⁷Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine;
    Ephraim is my helmet,
    Judah is my scepter.
⁸Moab is my washbasin,
    on Edom I toss my sandal;
    over Philistia I shout in triumph.”

⁹Who will bring me to the fortified city?
    Who will lead me to Edom?
¹⁰Is it not you, God, you who have now rejected us
    and no longer go out with our armies?
¹¹Give us aid against the enemy,
    for human help is worthless.
¹²With God we will gain the victory,
    and he will trample down our enemies.

¹⁵My son, if your heart is wise,
    then my heart will be glad indeed;
¹⁶my inmost being will rejoice
    when your lips speak what is right.