The Living Bible (284 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
The Lord says, “The people of Moab have sinned again and again, and I will not forget it. I will not leave them unpunished anymore. For they desecrated the tombs of the kings of Edom, with no respect for the dead.
2
Now in return I will send fire upon Moab, and it will destroy all the palaces in Kerioth. Moab shall go down in tumult as the warriors shout and trumpets blare.
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And I will destroy their king and slay all the leaders under him.” The Lord has spoken.
4
The Lord says, “The people of Judah have sinned again and again, and I will not forget it. I will not leave them unpunished anymore. For they have rejected the laws of God, refusing to obey him. They have hardened their hearts and sinned as their fathers did.
5
So I will destroy Judah with fire and burn down all Jerusalem’s palaces and forts.”
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The Lord says, “The people of Israel have sinned again and again, and I will not forget it. I will not leave them unpunished anymore. For they have perverted justice by accepting bribes and sold into slavery the poor who can’t repay their debts; they trade them for a pair of shoes.
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They trample the poor in the dust and kick aside the meek.
“And a man and his father defile the same temple girl, corrupting my holy name.
8
At their religious feasts they lounge in clothing stolen from their debtors, and in my own Temple they offer sacrifices of wine they purchased with stolen money.
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“Yet think of all I did for them! I cleared the land of the Amorites before them—the Amorites, as tall as cedar trees, and strong as oaks! But I lopped off their fruit and cut their roots.
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And I brought you out from Egypt and led you through the desert forty years, to possess the land of the Amorites.
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And I chose your sons to be Nazirites
*
and prophets—can you deny this, Israel?” asks the Lord.
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“But you caused the Nazirites to sin by urging them to drink your wine, and you silenced my prophets, telling them, ‘Shut up!’
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“Therefore, I will make you groan as a wagon groans that is loaded with sheaves.
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Your swiftest warriors will stumble in flight. The strong will all be weak, and the great ones can no longer save themselves.
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The archer’s aim will fail, the swiftest runners won’t be fast enough to flee, and even the best of horsemen can’t outrun the danger then.
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The most courageous of your mighty men will drop their weapons and run for their lives that day.” The Lord God has spoken.
Listen! This is your doom! It is spoken by the Lord against both Israel and Judah—against the entire family I brought from Egypt:
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“Of all the peoples of the earth, I have chosen you alone. That is why I must punish you the more for all your sins.
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For how can we walk together with your sins between us?
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“Would I be roaring as a lion unless I had a reason? The fact is, I am getting ready to destroy you. Even a young lion, when it growls, shows it is ready for its food.
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A trap doesn’t snap shut unless it is stepped on; your punishment is well deserved.
6
The alarm has sounded—listen and fear! For I, the Lord, am sending disaster into your land.
7
“But always, first of all, I warn you through my prophets. This I now have done.”
8
The Lion has roared—tremble in fear. The Lord God has sounded your doom—I dare not refuse to proclaim it.
9
“Call together the Assyrian and Egyptian leaders, saying, ‘Take your seats now on the mountains of Samaria to witness the scandalous spectacle of all Israel’s crimes.’
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My people have forgotten what it means to do right,” says the Lord. “Their beautiful homes are full of the loot from their thefts and banditry.
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Therefore,” the Lord God says, “an enemy is coming! He is surrounding them and will shatter their forts and plunder those beautiful homes.”
12
The Lord says, “A shepherd tried to rescue his sheep from a lion, but it was too late; he snatched from the lion’s mouth two legs and a piece of ear. So it will be when the Israelites in Samaria are finally rescued—all they will have left is half a chair and a tattered pillow.
13
“Listen to this announcement and publish it throughout all Israel,” says the Lord, the Lord Almighty:
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“On the same day that I punish Israel for her sins I will also destroy the idol altars at Bethel. The horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.
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“And I will destroy the beautiful homes of the wealthy—their winter mansions and their summer houses too—and demolish their ivory palaces.”
Listen to me, you “fat cows” of Bashan living in Samaria—you women who encourage your husbands to rob the poor and crush the needy—you who never have enough to drink!
2
The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that the time will come when he will put hooks in your noses and lead you away like the cattle you are; they will drag the last of you away with fishhooks!
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You will be hauled from your beautiful homes and tossed out through the nearest breach in the wall. The Lord has said it.
4
Go ahead and sacrifice to idols at Bethel and Gilgal. Keep disobeying—your sins are mounting up. Sacrifice each morning and bring your tithes twice a week!
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Go through all your proper forms and give extra offerings. How you pride yourselves and crow about it everywhere!
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“I sent you hunger,” says the Lord, “but it did no good; you still would not return to me.
7
I ruined your crops by holding back the rain three months before the harvest. I sent rain on one city but not another. While rain fell on one field, another was dry and withered.
8
People from two or three cities would make their weary journey for a drink of water to a city that had rain, but there wasn’t ever enough. Yet you wouldn’t return to me,” says the Lord.
9
“I sent blight and mildew on your farms and your vineyards; the locusts ate your figs and olive trees. And still you wouldn’t return to me,” says the Lord.
10
“I sent you plagues like those of Egypt long ago. I killed your lads in war and drove away your horses. The stench of death was terrible to smell. And yet you refused to come.
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I destroyed some of your cities, as I did Sodom and Gomorrah; those left are like half-burned firebrands snatched away from fire. And still you won’t return to me,” says the Lord.
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“Therefore, I will bring upon you all these further evils I have spoken of. Prepare to meet your God in judgment, Israel.
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For you are dealing with the One who formed the mountains, made the winds, and knows your every thought; he turns the morning to darkness and crushes down the mountains underneath his feet: Jehovah, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is his name.”
Sadly I sing this song of grief for you, O Israel:
2
“Beautiful Israel lies broken and crushed upon the ground and cannot rise. No one will help her. She is left alone to die.”
3
For the Lord God says, “The city that sends a thousand men to battle, a hundred will return. The city that sends a hundred, only ten will come back alive.”
4
The Lord says to the people of Israel, “Seek me—and live.
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Don’t seek the idols of Bethel, Gilgal, or Beersheba; for the people of Gilgal will be carried off to exile, and those of Bethel shall surely come to grief.”
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Seek the Lord and live, or else he will sweep like fire through Israel and consume her, and none of the idols in Bethel can put it out.
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O evil men, you make “justice” a bitter pill for the poor and oppressed. “Righteousness” and “fair play” are meaningless fictions to you!
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Seek him who created the Seven Stars and the constellation Orion, who turns darkness into morning and day into night, who calls forth the water from the ocean and pours it out as rain upon the land. The Lord, Jehovah, is his name.
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With blinding speed and violence he brings destruction on the strong, breaking all defenses.
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How you hate honest judges! How you despise people who tell the truth!
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You trample the poor and steal their smallest crumb by all your taxes, fines, and usury; therefore, you will never live in the beautiful stone houses you are building, nor drink the wine from the lush vineyards you are planting.
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For many and great are your sins. I know them all so well. You are the enemies of everything good; you take bribes; you refuse justice to the poor.
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Therefore, those who are wise will not try to interfere with the Lord in the dread day of your punishment.
14
Be good, flee evil—and live! Then the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will truly be your Helper, as you have claimed he is.
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Hate evil and love the good; remodel your courts into true halls of justice. Perhaps even yet the Lord God of Hosts will have mercy on his people who remain.
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Therefore the Lord God says this: “There will be crying in all the streets and every road. Call for the farmers to weep with you too; call for professional mourners to wail and lament.
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There will be sorrow and crying in every vineyard, for I will pass through and destroy.
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You say, ‘If only the Day of the Lord were here, for then God would deliver us from all our foes.’ But you have no idea what you ask. For that day will
not
be light and prosperity, but darkness and doom! How terrible the darkness will be for you; not a ray of joy or hope will shine.
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In that day you will be as a man who is chased by a lion and is met by a bear, or a man in a dark room who leans against a wall and puts his hand on a snake.
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Yes, that will be a dark and hopeless day for you.
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“I hate your show and pretense—your hypocrisy of ‘honoring’ me with your religious feasts and solemn assemblies.
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I will not accept your burnt offerings and thank offerings. I will not look at your offerings of peace.
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Away with your hymns of praise—they are mere noise to my ears. I will not listen to your music, no matter how lovely it is.
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“I want to see a mighty flood of justice—a torrent of doing good.
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“You sacrificed to me for forty years while you were in the desert, Israel—but always your real interest has been in your heathen gods—in Sakkuth your king, and in Kaiwan, your god of the stars, and in all the images of them you made. So I will send them into captivity with you far to the east of Damascus,” says the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
