The Daily Audio Bible
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A song to thank God
25 Lord, you are my God!
I will praise you
because your name is great.
You have done wonderful things.
You decided a long time ago what you would do.
And you have done exactly what you promised to do.
2 You have destroyed cities
so that they become a heap of stones.
You have destroyed the strongest cities.
The beautiful palaces in foreign lands have disappeared.
Nobody will build them again.
3 So people of strong nations will praise you.
The people of cruel nations will be afraid of you.
4 You Lord have been a safe place for poor people.
When helpless people were in trouble,
you have kept them safe.
You were a place for them to hide from the storm.
You gave them shade from the heat.
Yes, cruel people attack them
like a storm that hits against a wall.
5 and like strong heat in the desert.
You Lord stopped the proud noise of foreign people.
Like the shadow of a cloud that stops the heat of the sun,
you stopped our cruel enemy's songs.
You stopped them as they boasted of their strength.
6 The Lord Almighty will prepare a feast on this mountain.[a]
It will be a feast for all the nations of the world.
It will be a great feast, with plenty of meat and wine.
The best meat and the best wine will be there.
7 On this mountain the Lord will take away the things
that make all people sad.
He will remove the cloth
that covers the people of all nations.
8 The Almighty Lord will destroy death for ever.
He will clean away the tears in everyone's eyes.
His people will not feel ashamed any more.
Nobody in all the world will ever insult them again.
That is what the Lord has said.
9 At that time, people will say,
‘Look! This is our God!
We trusted him to keep us safe,
and he rescued us.
Yes, this is the Lord!
We trusted him to keep us safe.
We will sing with joy,
because he has saved us.’
10 The Lord's power will bless this mountain.
He will knock down Moab's people
and he will walk all over them.
He will walk on them,
as if they are straw in a heap of dung.
11 Moab's people will try to escape from that punishment.
They will push with their hands as they try to swim out!
But the Lord will make their proud strength useless,
whatever they do to escape.
12 He will knock down the high walls of Moab's city.
He will completely destroy their strong place.
It will all fall down into the dust on the ground.
A song to praise God
26 At that time, people will sing this song in Judah:
We have a strong city, where we are safe.
The Lord has made it safe,
like strong walls that protect us all round.[b]
2 Open the gates of the city,
so that the righteous nation can come in.
They are the people who continue to be faithful.
3 Lord, you keep those people safe
who continue to trust in you.
You give them peace in their minds,
because they believe in you.
4 Trust in the Lord now and for ever!
The Almighty Lord will always be our strong Rock.
5 He brings down low the proud people who live in high places.
He destroys their cities.
He knocks down their cities
so that they fall to the ground and become dust.
6 The poor people and the helpless people
will walk all over it.
Trust in the Lord
7 Righteous people walk on a path that is flat. You make their path straight, Lord.
8 Yes, Lord, as we follow the path of your justice, we wait for you to help us. We really want people to know that you are great. We want them to praise your name.
9 During the night, I think about you a lot. When morning arrives, I want to be near to you in my spirit. When you come to judge people on the earth, then people will understand your justice.
10 If you are kind to wicked people, they will never learn to do what is right. They continue to do wrong things, even in a land where people are honest. They do not see that you are great, Lord.
11 Lord, you are ready to punish them, but they do not realize that. Make them see that you love your own people. Then they will become ashamed. In your anger, punish them with fire, as your enemies deserve.
12 Lord, you will give us peace. Everything that we have done, you have done on our behalf.
13 Lord, our God, other lords have ruled over us. But you are the only one that we worship.
14 Those other lords are dead. They will not live again. Their spirits will not rise up again. You punished them and you destroyed them. Nobody remembers them any more.
15 Lord, you have made our nation larger. You have made our nation larger and you have shown how great you are. You have made all the borders of our land grow bigger.
A sad prayer
16 Lord, when your people had trouble, they came to you for help. When you punished them, they turned to you and they prayed.
17 Because of your punishment, Lord, we had much pain. We were like a woman who is giving birth and she cries out with pain. 18 Yes, it seemed like we were pregnant and ready to give birth. But we could only give birth to wind! We could not do anything to make the land safe. We have no descendants who will bring new life to the world.
19 But Lord, your people who have died will live again. Their bodies will rise up from their graves. You people who live in the ground, wake up! Shout because you are happy. You bring new life to the earth, like dew that comes in the morning. Dead people will come up from the earth and they will live again.
20 My people, go into your homes. Shut the doors and hide yourselves for a short time. Wait there until the Lord is not angry any more. 21 Look! Now the Lord is coming from the place where he lives. He is coming to punish the people who live on the earth for their sins. The earth will clearly show the blood that murderers poured out on it. Murderers will no longer be able to hide the people that they have killed.
27 At that time, the Lord will punish Leviathan. The Lord will use his great and powerful sword to destroy that monster. Leviathan is a snake that moves very fast in the sea and it turns in every direction. But the Lord will kill it.
God will take care of his people
2 At that time, sing a song about a beautiful vineyard!
3 I, the Lord, keep it safe. I will continue to put water on it. I will guard it night and day, so that nobody can hurt it.
4 I am not angry now. If there were thorn bushes or weeds in my vineyard, I would attack them. I would burn them all. 5 But my enemies should turn to me for help. They should agree to live in peace with me. Yes, that is what they should do.
6 The time will come when Jacob will grow well, like a strong plant in the ground. Yes, Israel will make flowers and branches. Their fruit will fill all the world.
7 The Lord did not punish Israel's people as much as he punished their enemies. He did not kill them as much as he killed their enemies. 8 But Lord you sent your people to a land far away. That is how you punished them. You blew them away with a storm that came from the east. 9 In that way the Lord punished Jacob's descendants for their sins. They are no longer guilty. This will be the result when God has taken away Jacob's sin completely: All the stones in their altars will become small pieces of chalk. There will be no Asherah pole or altars for incense that continue to stand.
10 The strong city will become empty. Nobody will live there any more. It will be like an empty desert. Young cows will eat the grass there, and they will lie down there. They will eat all the leaves on the branches of the tree. 11 When the branches become dry, they break off the tree. Women will take the sticks and they will make fires with them. That is what these people are like. They do not understand anything. So their Maker will not help them or be kind to them.
12 At that time, the Lord will shake the tree! He will do that to his people everywhere from the River Euphrates to the Stream of Egypt.[c] Then he will bring together all of you, one by one, you Israelite people.
13 At that time, they will hear the sound of a loud trumpet. Then people who were dying in exile in Assyria will come. People who went away into Egypt will also come. They will worship the Lord on his holy hill in Jerusalem.[d]
A sad song about Ephraim[e]
28 It will be very bad for Ephraim's beautiful city, Samaria! The people who live there drink too much wine and they become drunk. They are proud of their great city. It is on a hill above a valley where many good things grow. It is like a beautiful flower, but it will be beautiful no more and it will die.
2 Look! The Lord God is sending a strong and powerful army to attack it.[f] It comes like a strong storm of ice. Its wind destroys everything. It is like rain that pours down and causes a flood. He will knock down Ephraim's great city to the ground with his great power!
3 The drunk people of Samaria think that their city is great. But their enemies will knock it down and walk all over it. 4 The city is like a beautiful flower that will soon die. It is on a hill above a valley where many good things grow. But it will be like a fig on a tree. It is ready to eat before the harvest time. When someone sees it, he will quickly pick it. And he will eat it!
5 At that time. the Lord Almighty will be a great leader of his people. He will be like a beautiful crown for his people who still remain alive. 6 He will help judges to decide what is right. He will give strength to the people who keep the city safe from those who attack it.
7 But now wine causes the leaders in Ephraim to become drunk. They cannot walk in a straight line because they drink too much beer. Beer causes the priests and the prophets to fall over. Wine confuses their minds. When they see visions, they cannot understand them. When they judge people, they cannot decide what is right.
8 They are sick over all their tables. Everywhere is covered with dirt.
9 They say, ‘Why does the Lord try to teach us like that? Who does he think that we are? He speaks to us as if we are babies! He thinks that we have just left our mother's breast! 10 He teaches us one rule at a time, one line at a time. He says it several times, a little bit here, a little bit there.’
11 So now the Lord will use foreign enemies to speak to these people. He will speak to them in a strange language.
12 In the past, he said to them, ‘This is a place where you can rest when you are tired. It is a place where you can be safe.’ But his people refused to listen. 13 So the Lord's message will seem to them like, ‘One rule at a time, one line at a time, a little bit here, a little bit there.’ So as they try to move forward, they will fall over. An enemy will hurt them, and he will catch them in a trap.
10 But some people try to obey all the rules of God's Law. They think that they will become right with God if they do this very well. But God will speak against people like that and he will punish them. It is written in the Bible: ‘God will punish everyone who does not always obey all the rules in his Law completely.’[a] 11 We know that the Law can not cause anyone to become right with God. That is clear because the Bible says, ‘The person that God has accepted as right will live because they trust him.’[b]
12 But the Law does not tell people to trust God. It tells people about all the things that they must do. The Bible says, ‘The person who obeys all the rules in God's Law completely will live’. 13 So God's Law shows that it is right for God to punish us. But Christ took that punishment away from us, because God punished him instead of us. It says in the Bible: ‘When people hang someone on a tree to kill him, it shows that God has cursed that person.’[c] 14 Christ died in that way so that God would bless the Gentiles in the way that he blessed Abraham. Also, if we believe in Christ, we can then receive God's Spirit that he promised.
God's promise to Abraham still has authority
15 My Christian friends, I will use an example from our lives. Two people may make an agreement together and they both agree to it properly. If they do that, nobody else can change that agreement. They cannot take away its authority. 16 In the same way, God promised to bless Abraham and Abraham's descendant. The Bible does not say ‘descendants’. It does not speak about ‘many people’. No, God promised to bless Abraham's descendant. He speaks about one person, and that person is Christ.[d] 17 What I mean is this: God made an agreement with Abraham. He promised to bless him. Then, 430 years later, God gave his Law to Moses for the Jewish people. But that Law could not take away the authority of God's agreement with Abraham. It could not stop what God had already promised. 18 God has promised to give good things to his children. But that does not happen as a result of God's Law. If that were true, then we would not receive God's good things as a result of his promise. But God gave those good things to Abraham as a gift, because he had promised to bless Abraham.
The purpose of God's Law
19 So we could ask: Why did God give his Law to his people after his promise to Abraham? He gave his Law to show them which things are wrong. It would have authority until Abraham's special descendant would come. That was the descendant that God had promised to bless. God used angels to give his Law to his people.[e] It was Moses who received the Law from God, and Moses then took it to God's people. 20 But God himself gave his promise to Abraham. It was not necessary to have somebody in between, like Moses.
21 So should we say that God's Law works against God's promises? No, certainly that is not true! It is not possible for the rules of any law to give us life with God. If that could happen, then God would have accepted us as right if we obeyed those rules. 22 But the Bible says that sin has power over everyone. People can not get free. This means that we can only receive what God has promised when we trust Jesus Christ. God gives his promise to those who believe.
David wrote this song. Tell the music leader to use stringed instruments.
God will keep me safe[a]
61 God, please hear me when I call to you for help.
Listen carefully to my prayer.
2 I will call out to you from far away,
because I am sad and weak.
Lead me to a strong, safe rock
that is higher than I am.
3 You are the safe place where I can hide.
You are like a strong tower
that keeps me safe against my enemies.[b]
4 I want to live in your house for ever.
I want you to keep me safe,
like birds protect their babies under their wings.
Selah.
5 You, God, have heard my promises to you.
You have blessed me,
as you bless all those people who serve you.
6 Please give the king a long life.
Let him live to see many descendants.
7 Let him rule for ever
with your authority.
Cause your faithful love and your truth to keep him safe.[c]
8 Then I will always praise your name.
Every day I will give to you
the offerings that I have promised.
17 14. Do not be jealous of sinners. Always respect the Lord and obey him in everything that you do. 18 Then you will be happy in future days. What you hope for will surely happen.
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