1 “Then we turned and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea, as the Lord spoke to me, and we circled Mount Seir for many days. 2 And the Lord spoke to me, saying, 3 ‘You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north, 4 and command the people, saying, “You are going to pass through the territory of your brothers the sons of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful; 5 do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even as much as a footprint, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. 6 You are to buy food from them with money so that you may eat, and you shall also purchase water from them with money so that you may drink. 7 For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known your wandering through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have not lacked anything.”’
8 “So we passed beyond our brothers the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, away from the Arabah road, away from Elath and Ezion-geber. And we turned and passed through by the way of the wilderness of Moab. 9 Then the Lord said to me, ‘Do not attack Moab, nor provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot as a possession.’ 10 (The Emim lived there previously, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. 11 Like the Anakim, they too are regarded as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim. 12 The Horites previously lived in Seir, but the sons of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them, and settled in their place; just as Israel did to the land of their possession which the Lord gave them.) 13 ‘Now arise and cross over the Wadi Zered yourselves.’ So we crossed over the Wadi Zered. 14 Now the time that it took for us to come from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Wadi Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war perished from within the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them. 15 Indeed, the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from within the camp until they all perished.
16 “So it came about, when all the men of war had finally perished from among the people, 17 that the Lord spoke to me, saying, 18 ‘Today you shall cross over Ar, the border of Moab. 19 When you come opposite the sons of Ammon, do not attack them nor provoke them, for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession.’ 20 (It is also regarded as the land of the Rephaim, because the Rephaim previously lived in it, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummin, 21 a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim; but the Lord destroyed them before them. And they dispossessed them and settled in their place, 22 just as He did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them; they dispossessed them and settled in their place, where they remain even to this day. 23 And as for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and lived in their place.) 24 ‘Arise, set out, and pass through the Valley of Arnon. Look! I have handed over to you Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land; start taking possession and plunge into battle with him. 25 This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the faces of people everywhere, who, when they hear the news of you, will tremble and be in anguish because of you.’
26 “So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, 27 ‘Let me pass through your land; I will travel only on the road. I will not turn aside to the right or to the left. 28 You will sell me food for money so that I may eat, and give me water for money so that I may drink, only let me pass through on foot, 29 just as the sons of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I cross over the Jordan into the land that the Lord our God is giving us.’ 30 But Sihon king of Heshbon was not willing for us to pass through his land; for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, in order to hand him over to you, as he is today. 31 And the Lord said to me, ‘See, I have begun to turn Sihon and his land over to you. Begin taking possession, so that you may possess his land.’
32 “Then Sihon came out with all his people to meet us in battle at Jahaz. 33 And the Lord our God turned him over to us, and we defeated him with his sons and all his people. 34 So we captured all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men, women, and children of every city. We left no survivor. 35 We took only the animals as our plunder, and the spoils of the cities which we had captured. 36 From Aroer which is on the edge of the Valley of Arnon and from the city which is in the valley, even to Gilead, there was no city that was too high for us; the Lord our God turned it all over to us. 37 Only you did not go near the land of the sons of Ammon, all along the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill country, and wherever the Lord our God had commanded us to avoid.
1 God, do not remain quiet;
Do not be silent and, God, do not be still.
2 For behold, Your enemies make an uproar,
And those who hate You have exalted themselves.
3 They make shrewd plans against Your people,
And conspire together against Your treasured ones.
4 They have said, “Come, and let’s wipe them out as a nation,
So that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered.”
5 For they have conspired together with one mind;
They make a covenant against You:
6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites;
7 Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek,
Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Assyria also has joined them;
They have become a help to the children of Lot. Selah
9 Deal with them as with Midian,
As with Sisera and Jabin at the river of Kishon,
10 Who were destroyed at En-dor,
Who became like dung for the ground.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
And all their leaders like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 Who said, “Let’s possess for ourselves
The pastures of God.”
13 My God, make them like the whirling dust,
Like chaff before the wind.
14 Like fire that burns the forest,
And like a flame that sets the mountains on fire,
15 So pursue them with Your heavy gale,
And terrify them with Your storm.
16 Fill their faces with dishonor,
So that they will seek Your name, Lord.
17 May they be ashamed and dismayed forever,
And may they be humiliated and perish,
18 So that they will know that You alone, whose name is the Lord,
Are the Most High over all the earth.
1 How lovely are Your dwelling places,
Lord of armies!
2 My soul longed and even yearned for the courtyards of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
3 The bird also has found a house,
And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may put her young:
Your altars, Lord of armies,
My King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in Your house!
They are ever praising You. Selah
5 Blessed is the person whose strength is in You,
In whose heart are the roads to Zion!
6 Passing through the Valley of Baca they make it a spring;
The early rain also covers it with blessings.
7 They go from strength to strength,
Every one of them appears before God in Zion.
8 Lord God of armies, hear my prayer;
Listen, God of Jacob! Selah
9 See our shield, God,
And look at the face of Your anointed.
10 For a day in Your courtyards is better than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God
Than live in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord gives grace and glory;
He withholds no good thing from those who walk with integrity.
12 Lord of armies,
Blessed is the person who trusts in You!
1 “Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord,
“Who execute a plan, but not Mine,
And make an alliance, but not of My Spirit,
In order to add sin to sin;
2 Who proceed down to Egypt
Without consulting Me,
To take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh,
And to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!
3 Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame,
And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation.
4 For their officials are at Zoan
And their ambassadors arrive at Hanes.
5 Everyone will be ashamed because of a people who do not benefit them,
Who are not a help or benefit, but a source of shame and also disgrace.”
6 The pronouncement concerning the animals of the Negev:
Through a land of distress and anguish,
From where come lioness and lion, viper and flying serpent,
They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys,
And their treasures on camels’ humps,
To a people who will not benefit them;
7 Even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty.
Therefore, I have called her
“Rahab who has been exterminated.”
8 Now go, write it on a tablet in their presence
And inscribe it on a scroll,
That it may serve in the time to come
As a witness forever.
9 For this is a rebellious people, false sons,
Sons who refuse to listen
To the instruction of the Lord;
10 Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions”;
And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy the truth to us.
Speak to us pleasant words,
Prophesy illusions.
11 Get out of the way, turn aside from the path,
Stop speaking before us about the Holy One of Israel!”
12 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
“Since you have rejected this word
And have put your trust in oppression and crookedness, and have relied on them,
13 Therefore this wrongdoing will be to you
Like a breach about to fall,
A bulge in a high wall,
Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant,
14 Whose collapse is like the smashing of a potter’s jar,
So ruthlessly shattered
That a shard will not be found among its pieces
To take fire from a hearth
Or to scoop water from a cistern.”
15 For this is what the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said:
“In repentance and rest you will be saved,
In quietness and trust is your strength.”
But you were not willing,
16 And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses!”
Therefore you shall flee!
“And we will ride on swift horses!”
Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift.
17 One thousand will flee at the threat of one man;
You will flee at the threat of five,
Until you are left like a signal post on a mountain top,
And like a flag on a hill.
18 Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.
19 For, you people in Zion, inhabitant in Jerusalem, you will weep no longer. He will certainly be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. 20 Although the Lord has given you bread of deprivation and water of oppression, He, your Teacher, will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will see your Teacher. 21 Your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left. 22 And you will desecrate your carved images plated with silver, and your cast metal images plated with gold. You will scatter them as a filthy thing, and say to them, “Be gone!”
23 Then He will give you rain for your seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plentiful; on that day your livestock will graze in a wide pasture. 24 Also the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned feed, which has been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork. 25 And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 And the light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the wound He has inflicted.
27 Behold, the name of the Lord comes from a remote place;
His anger is burning and dense with smoke;
His lips are filled with indignation,
And His tongue is like a consuming fire;
28 His breath is like an overflowing river,
Which reaches to the neck,
To shake the nations back and forth in a sieve,
And to put in the jaws of the peoples the bridle which leads astray.
29 You will have songs as in the night when you keep the festival,
And gladness of heart as when one marches to the sound of the flute,
To go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.
30 And the Lord will cause His voice of authority to be heard,
And the descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger,
And in the flame of a consuming fire
In cloudburst, downpour, and hailstones.
31 For at the voice of the Lord Assyria will be terrified,
When He strikes with the rod.
32 And every blow of the rod of punishment,
Which the Lord will lay on him,
Will be with the music of tambourines and lyres;
And in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight them.
33 For Topheth has long been ready,
Indeed, it has been prepared for the king.
He has made it deep and large,
A pyre of fire with plenty of wood;
The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire.
1 Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all time handed down to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into indecent behavior and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5 Now I want to remind you, though you know everything once and for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling place, these He has kept in eternal restraints under darkness for the judgment of the great day, 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these angels indulged in sexual perversion and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
8 Yet in the same way these people also, dreaming, defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak abusively of angelic majesties. 9 But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him an abusive judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” 10 But these people disparage all the things that they do not understand; and all the things that they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have given themselves up to the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. 12 These are the ones who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, like shepherds caring only for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, churning up their own shameful deeds like dirty foam; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved forever.
14 It was also about these people that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord has come with many thousands of His holy ones, 15 to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” 16 These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.
17 But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 18 that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” 19 These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting; 23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.
24 Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.
