The Daily Audio Bible
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Isaiah's song
12 At that time, you will say,
‘I praise you, Lord.
You were angry with me. But now, you are no longer angry.
Now you have been kind to me.
2 Listen! God is the one who saves me!
I will continue to trust him.
I will not be afraid because the Lord himself makes me strong.
He keeps me safe. He rescues us from our enemies.’
3 When God does that, it will make you very happy.
You will be safe, like someone who gets plenty of good water from a well to drink.
4 At that time, you will say, ‘Praise the Lord!
Thank him for his help!
Tell all the nations about the great things that God has done.
Tell them that he is very great!
5 Sing songs to praise the Lord,
because he has done wonderful things!
Cause everyone in the world to know it!
6 Everyone who lives in Zion,
shout aloud and sing with joy!
The Holy God of Israel is great,
and he lives among you.’
God will destroy Babylon
13 This is God's message about Babylon that he showed to Isaiah, the son of Amoz:
2 Lift up a sign on an empty hill. Shout aloud for an army to attack! Wave your hand! Then they will go through the city gates into the rulers' palaces.
3 I, the Lord, have sent my special men. I am very angry. Those men are my brave soldiers who will punish Babylon on my behalf. They are proud because I have made them strong.
4 Listen to the loud noise of a big crowd on the mountains! It is the sound of large armies from many kingdoms as they march and shout. Nations are joining together to fight! The Lord Almighty is preparing an army ready for war.
5 People are coming from countries that are far away, from the ends of the earth. The Lord himself is coming with weapons for war, because he is angry. He will destroy the whole land.
6 Weep, because the day of the Lord is near. That is the time when God Almighty will destroy his enemies. 7 All the people will become weak with fear. They will no longer be brave. 8 They will be very afraid. Their bodies will hurt with great pain, like a woman who is giving birth. They will look at each other, as their faces show fear and pain.
9 Look! The day of the Lord will happen soon! It will be a cruel day. The Lord will punish his enemies with great anger. He will destroy the whole land, as well as all the sinners in it.
10 When he does that, the stars in the sky will give no light. When the sun rises in the morning, it will still be dark. The moon will no longer shine.
11 I, the Lord, will punish the world, because it is evil. I will punish wicked people for their sins. I will stop proud people from boasting. If strong people are cruel to others, I will bring them down low.
12 Very few people will remain after my punishment. Men and women will be more difficult to find than the best gold.
13 Then I will cause the sky to shake. The earth will move from its proper place. People will see how angry I am, when they see the great anger of the Lord Almighty. 14 Everyone will try to run away and escape. They will run anywhere, like a deer that runs away from a hunter. They will be like sheep with no shepherd to lead them. They will return to their own countries and homes.
15 The enemy soldiers will catch all those who do not escape. They will use their swords to kill everyone that they catch. 16 They will knock their children down in pieces while the parents watch. They will rob the people's homes. They will have sex with their wives.
17 Look! I will cause the Medes to come and attack Babylon. Their army has no interest in silver or gold, so nobody can pay them to stop.
18 Their arrows will kill Babylon's young men. They will not let babies or children go free.
19 Yes, God will destroy Babylon, as he did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Babylon has been a great and beautiful city. The people of the whole nation have been very proud of it. But God will still destroy it.
20 The people and their descendants will never live there again. No Arab will put his tent there. No shepherds will take their sheep there to rest. 21 Only wild animals will lie down there. Its old houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will live there and wild goats will jump in it. 22 Wild dogs and hyenas will cry out in its towers and palaces. Enemies will soon destroy Babylon! Only a few days remain.
God's people will return
14 The Lord will once again be kind to Jacob's descendants. He will choose to help the Israelite people again, as his own people. He will put them back in their land. Foreign people will join them and they will become a part of Jacob's family. 2 People of other nations will help Israel's people to return to their own country. When they are living again in the land that the Lord gave to them, foreign people will become their servants, both men and women. In that way, the people who made the Israelites prisoners will be prisoners themselves! The Israelites will rule over the people who had been cruel to them.
The king of Babylon will die
3 At that time, the Lord will let you live safely, without trouble and without pain. You will no longer have to work for cruel people, as their slaves. 4 Then you will laugh at the king of Babylon. You will say to him,
‘Now you cannot be cruel to us any more! Your power to cause trouble has finished! 5 The Lord has destroyed the authority of wicked rulers like you.
6 You used your power to attack people all the time. In your anger, you ruled over other nations, and you never stopped being cruel to them.
7 But now there is peace in the whole world. People can live safely. Everyone is so happy that they are singing! 8 Even the pine trees and the cedar trees in Lebanon are happy because your power has finished. They say to you, “Now God has knocked you down. So nobody will come again to cut us down!”
9 The deep hole of death below the earth is ready to receive you! People there want to meet you. The spirits of those who ruled on the earth have heard that you are coming. They are standing up from their thrones. 10 All of them will say to you, “Now you have become as weak as we are! You are weak like us!”
11 Your great power has now come down low, into the deep hole of death. People no longer praise you with their harps. Now you will lie on a bed of maggots.[a] A blanket of worms will cover you.
12 Look at you! You have fallen from heaven!
You shine like the bright morning star!
You have won against many nations,
but now you have come down very low!
13 You said to yourself, “I will go up into heaven.
I will put my throne above the stars of God.
I will rule as king on the mountain in the far north,
where the gods of the nations meet together.
14 I will go up above the tops of the clouds.
I will become like the Most High God.”
15 But instead of that, you have come down into the deep hole of death.
You have fallen to the deepest place under the earth.
16 In that deep place, people will look at you carefully. They will be very surprised. They will think, “This is the man who caused the earth to shake. He caused kingdoms to shake with fear. Is that really true? 17 Is this really the man who made the world become like a desert? He destroyed its cities. He did not let his prisoners go back to their homes.”
18 All the kings of all the nations lie down there, with all their valuable things. Each king lies in his own grave. 19 But as for you, Babylon's king, they have thrown you out! You have no grave! You are like a branch that has broken off. You lie among the dead bodies of soldiers that their enemies have killed with their swords. They have thrown your body into a big hole in the rocks, and they have walked over it.
20 They will not bury you with those other kings, because you destroyed your land and you killed your people. Nobody will ever remember the family of a wicked person like you.
21 Prepare to kill this king's children, because of the sins of their ancestors. Then his children will not rule the world. They will not build cities everywhere.’
22 This is what the Lord Almighty says, ‘I will attack Babylon and I will destroy it. I will leave nothing that people can remember. No people or their descendants will remain.’
23 The Lord Almighty says, ‘I will make Babylon a place where wild animals live. There will be pools of bad water. I will sweep everything away, like someone who sweeps dirt away with a brush.’
A message about Assyria
24 The Lord Almighty promises this: ‘It will happen exactly as I have decided. Yes, it will really happen like that. 25 I will destroy the Assyrians who are in my land. I will knock them down on my mountains. They will no longer be cruel to my people. My people will not be their slaves any more. 26 That is what I have decided for the whole earth. I am ready to show my power against all the nations.’
27 Yes, the Lord Almighty has decided what he will do. Nobody can change it. He is ready to show his power. Nobody can stop it.
A message about Philistia
28 In the year that King Ahaz died, God showed this message to Isaiah:
29 Do not feel happy, you Philistine people. God has destroyed the king who was attacking you. That king hit you with a big stick, but a dangerous snake will follow! And that snake will give birth to an even more dangerous snake that moves very fast.
30 The Lord will give food to the poorest of his people. The weak and helpless people will live safely. But you Philistine people will die from famine. I will destroy you all, so that nobody remains.
31 Gate of the city, weep![b] City, cry out in pain! You Philistine people should be very afraid! See that cloud of smoke in the north! It is the dust of an army that is marching towards you. Their soldiers are ready to fight, and none of them is afraid.
32 When a foreign nation sends a message, what should we say? Say that the Lord has made Zion very strong. When his people have trouble, they will be safe there.
Paul's third visit to Corinth
13 This is the third time that I will be coming to visit you. Remember this: ‘There must be two or three people to say certainly that another person has done something wrong. Two or three people must agree what has happened.’[a] 2 I have already warned those people who did wrong things before. I did that when I was with you on my second visit. Now I am warning them again, while I am away from you. So, when I come to you the next time, nobody will go free. I will punish those people and all the others who have done wrong things. 3 That will tell you what you want to know about me. You will surely know that I speak with the authority of Christ himself. Christ is not weak when he works in you. He shows his power among you. 4 People killed Christ on the cross as a weak person. But he now lives by God's power. We are also weak as we serve Christ, like he was weak. But we live, because he now lives. So, when we come to you, we will show God's power among you.
5 Think carefully about how you are living. Are you really believing the message about Christ? I hope you know that Jesus Christ is in you. You ought to know that, unless you have completely failed. 6 I hope that you will know that we ourselves have not failed. We do belong to Christ, as you do.
7 Now we pray to God that you will not do any wrong things. We do not pray this to show that God has accepted us as good. We pray like that because we want you to do what is right. We want that, even if we ourselves seem to have failed. 8 We can only work to show what is true. We cannot do anything against what is true. 9 We are happy when we seem to be weak, if you become strong as a result. We pray that you will become completely as you should be.
10 That is why I am writing these things to you now, while I am away from you. Then, when I arrive, I will not need to be angry with you. I will not have to use my authority to punish you. The Lord gave that authority to me to help you to become stronger as believers. He did not give it to me so that I could destroy you.
Paul finishes his letter
11 Now I say ‘goodbye’ to you, my Christian friends. Do only what is right. Let my message make you strong. Agree with each other. Live together in peace. I pray that God will be with you. He is the one who loves us and gives us peace in our minds. 12 When you meet, kiss each other as Christian brothers and sisters. 13 All God's people here say ‘hello’ to you. 14 I pray that the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to be very kind to you all. I pray that God's love will be with you. And I pray that the Holy Spirit will help you to serve each other as friends.
This is for the music leader, and he should use special music.
David wrote this prayer when he ran away from King Saul to hide in a cave.
A prayer for help[a]
57 God, please be kind to me and help me!
Please help me!
I have come to you to keep me safe.
Until the danger has gone, keep me near to you,
in the way that birds protect their babies under their wings.
2 I will call to the Most High God to help me.
He is the God who stands beside me.
3 He will send help from heaven
and he will save me.
He will punish the people who attack me.
Selah.
God will show me his faithful love,
and he will do what he has promised.
4 My enemies are all round me,
like hungry lions!
I must lie down among wild animals,
that want to eat me!
They are men who use spears and arrows
to bite like teeth.
They use their tongues to hurt people,
like sharp swords.
5 God, show how great you are,
high above the sky!
Let everybody on the earth see your glory!
6 My enemies have prepared a trap to catch me.
That makes me very upset.
They have dug a deep hole on the path where I walk.
But they have fallen into it themselves!
Selah.
7 God, I have decided to trust you always.
Yes, I will trust you!
I will sing songs to praise you!
8 I will wake up now!
I will pick up my harp and my lyre.
I will make music as the sun rises![b]
9 My Lord, I will thank you
in front of all the people.
I will sing to praise you,
so that all nations hear.
10 Your faithful love is great,
higher than the skies.
Your truth reaches beyond the clouds.
11 God, show how great you are,
high above the sky!
Let everybody on the earth see your glory!
9 9. Do not speak to foolish people. They will think that your wise words are silly.
10 10. Never move a stone that has always shown the border of someone's land. Do not take for yourself the fields of people who have no family to help them. 11 God himself will be the relative who helps them. He will speak against you in court.
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