1 The pronouncement concerning Moab:
Certainly in a night Ar of Moab is devastated and ruined;
Certainly in a night Kir of Moab is devastated and ruined.
2 The people have gone up to the temple and to Dibon, to the high places to weep.
Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba;
Everyone’s head is bald and every beard is cut off.
3 In their streets they have put on sackcloth;
On their housetops and in their public squares
Everyone is wailing, overcome with weeping.
4 Heshbon and Elealeh also cry out,
Their voice is heard all the way to Jahaz;
Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud;
His soul trembles within him.
5 My heart cries out for Moab;
His fugitives are as far as Zoar and Eglath-shelishiyah,
For they go up the ascent of Luhith weeping;
Indeed, on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of distress over their collapse.
6 For the waters of Nimrim are desolate.
Indeed, the grass is withered, the new growth has died,
There is no greenery.
7 Therefore the abundance which they have acquired and stored up,
They carry it off over the brook of Arabim.
8 For the cry of distress has gone around the territory of Moab,
Its wailing goes as far as Eglaim and its howling to Beer-elim.
9 For the waters of Dimon are full of blood;
I will certainly bring added woes upon Dimon,
A lion upon the fugitives of Moab and the remnant of the land.
1 Send the tribute lamb to the ruler of the land,
From Sela by way of the wilderness to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.
2 Then, like fluttering birds or scattered nestlings,
The daughters of Moab will be at the crossing places of the Arnon.
3 “Give us advice, make a decision;
Cast your shadow like night at high noon;
Hide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive.
4 Let the outcasts of Moab stay with you;
Be a hiding place to them from the destroyer.”
For the oppressor has come to an end, destruction has ceased,
Oppressors have been removed from the land.
5 A throne will be established in faithfulness,
And a judge will sit on it in trustworthiness in the tent of David;
Moreover, he will seek justice,
And be prompt in righteousness.
6 We have heard of the pride of Moab, an excessive pride;
Even of his arrogance, pride, and fury;
His idle boasts are false.
7 Therefore Moab will wail; everyone of Moab will wail.
You will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth
As those who are utterly stricken.
8 For the fields of Heshbon have withered, the vines of Sibmah as well;
The lords of the nations have trampled down its choice clusters
Which reached as far as Jazer and wandered to the deserts;
Its tendrils spread themselves out and passed over the sea.
9 Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah;
I will drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh;
For the shouting over your summer fruits and your harvest has fallen away.
10 Gladness and joy are taken away from the fruitful field;
In the vineyards also there will be no cries of joy or jubilant shouting,
No treader treads out wine in the presses,
For I have made the shouting to cease.
11 Therefore my inner being sounds like a harp for Moab.
And my heart for Kir-hareseth.
12 So it will come about when Moab presents himself,
When he tires himself upon his high place
And comes to his sanctuary to pray,
That he will not prevail.
13 This is the word which the Lord spoke earlier concerning Moab. 14 But now the Lord has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as a hired worker would count them, the glory of Moab will become contemptible along with all his great population, and his remnant will be very small and impotent.”
1 The pronouncement concerning Damascus:
“Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city
And will become a fallen ruin.
2 The cities of Aroer are abandoned;
They will be for herds to lie down in,
And there will be no one to frighten them.
3 The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
And sovereignty from Damascus
And the remnant of Aram;
They will be like the glory of the sons of Israel,”
Declares the Lord of armies.
4 Now on that day the glory of Jacob will fade,
And the fatness of his flesh will become lean.
5 It will be like the reaper gathering the standing grain,
As his arm harvests the ears,
Or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain
In the Valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet gleanings will be left in it like the shaking of an olive tree,
Two or three olives on the topmost branch,
Four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree,
Declares the Lord, the God of Israel.
7 On that day man will look to his Maker
And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.
8 And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands,
Nor will he look to that which his fingers have made,
Even the Asherim and incense altars.
9 On that day their strong cities will be like abandoned places in the forest,
Or like branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel;
And the land will be a desolation.
10 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation
And have not remembered the rock of your refuge.
Therefore you plant delightful plants
And set them with vine shoots of a strange god.
11 On the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in,
And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom;
But the harvest will flee
On a day of illness and incurable pain.
12 Oh, the uproar of many peoples
Who roar like the roaring of the seas,
And the rumbling of nations
Who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters!
13 The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters,
But He will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,
And be chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind,
Or like whirling dust before a gale.
14 At evening time, behold, there is terror!
Before morning they are gone.
This will be the fate of those who plunder us
And the lot of those who pillage us.
1 Woe, land of whirring wings
Which lies beyond the rivers of Cush,
2 Which sends messengers by the sea,
Even in papyrus vessels on the surface of the waters.
Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth,
To a people feared far and wide,
A powerful and oppressive nation
Whose land the rivers divide.
3 All you who inhabit the world, and live on earth,
As soon as a flag is raised on the mountains, you will see it,
And as soon as the trumpet is blown, you will hear it.
4 For this is what the Lord has told me:
“I will quietly look from My dwelling place
Like dazzling heat in the sunshine,
Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the harvest, as soon as the bud blossoms
And the flower becomes a ripening grape,
He will cut off the shoots with pruning knives,
And remove and tear away the spreading branches.
6 They will be left together for mountain birds of prey,
And for the animals of the earth;
And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them,
And all the animals of the earth will spend harvest time on them.
7 At that time a gift of tribute will be brought to the Lord of armies
From a people tall and smooth,
From a people feared far and wide,
A powerful and oppressive nation,
Whose land the rivers divide—
To the place of the name of the Lord of armies, to Mount Zion.
1 Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through human agency, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), 2 and all the brothers who are with me,
To the churches of Galatia:
3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.
6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel, 7 which is not just another account; but there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, even now I say again: if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!
10 For am I now seeking the favor of people, or of God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.
11 For I would have you know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel which was preached by me is not of human invention. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
13 For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; 14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. 15 But when He who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace was pleased 16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.
18 Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him for fifteen days. 19 But I did not see another one of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. 20 (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.) 21 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which are in Christ; 23 but they only kept hearing, “The man who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they were glorifying God because of me.
1 Do you indeed speak righteousness, you gods?
Do you judge fairly, you sons of mankind?
2 No, in heart you practice injustice;
On earth you clear a way for the violence of your hands.
3 The wicked have turned away from the womb;
These who speak lies go astray from birth.
4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent;
Like a deaf cobra that stops up its ear,
5 So that it does not hear the voice of charmers,
Or a skillful caster of spells.
6 God, shatter their teeth in their mouth;
Break out the fangs of the young lions, Lord.
7 May they flow away like water that runs off;
When he aims his arrows, may they be as headless shafts.
8 May they be like a snail which goes along in slime,
Like the miscarriage of a woman that never sees the sun.
9 Before your pots can feel the fire of thorns
He will sweep them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike.
10 The righteous will rejoice when he sees vengeance;
He will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 And people will say, “There certainly is a reward for the righteous;
There certainly is a God who judges on the earth!”
12 Apply your heart to discipline,
And your ears to words of knowledge.
