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The Lord will bless his people
51 ‘Listen to me,
you people who want to do what is right.
You people who want to serve the Lord,
listen to me!
Think about the rock that you are a part of.[a]
Think about the ground that they dug you out from.
2 You all started from your ancestor Abraham,
and his wife Sarah.
When I first spoke to Abraham,
he had no children.
But I blessed him,
so that he had many descendants.’
3 Surely, the Lord will comfort Zion's people.
He will take care of the buildings
that enemies have destroyed.
Zion's land that is now a wilderness
will become like the beautiful Garden of Eden.
It will be the Lord's own garden!
People will be happy again in Zion.
They will sing with joy to thank God.
4 ‘Listen to me, my people.
Listen carefully, my nation.
I will tell all people about my laws.
I will cause my justice to be like a light to all nations.
5 I am ready to do what is right for them.
I am ready to save them.
I will judge all the nations fairly.
Lands that are far away will wait for me to help them.
They wait for me to come and rule them all with power.
6 Look up at the sky!
Look down at the earth below!
One day, the sky will disappear
like smoke that blows away.
The earth will become useless,
like old clothes.
The people who live on it will die.
They will fall like flies.
But I will keep my people safe for ever.
I will always rule with righteousness.
7 Listen to me,
you people who know what is right.
You people who think carefully about my law,
listen to me.
When people speak against you,
do not be afraid.
Do not be upset,
when they insult you.
8 Those people will soon disappear,
like clothes that moths have eaten,
like wool that worms have eaten.
But I will always rule with righteousness.
I will keep my people safe for ever.’
9 Wake up, Lord!
Get ready to show your strength!
Do great things, as you did in past days,
when our ancestors were alive.
Remember how you cut the monster, Rahab, into pieces.[b]
10 You made the sea become dry,
so that there was a path through the deep water.
The slaves that you rescued
could then cross over.[c]
11 The people that the Lord has rescued
will return from exile.
They will sing with joy
while they go into Zion city.
Their joy will be like a crown
that they wear on their heads for ever.
They will continue to be very happy.
They will never be sad or weep again.
12 ‘I am the Lord who comforts you.
You do not need to be afraid of people who are only human.
Remember that they will all die one day,
like grass that only lives for a short time.
13 Do not forget about the Lord who made you!
I hung up the sky like a curtain.
I made the foundation of the earth.
So why are you always shaking with fear?
Do not be afraid when your enemy is angry,
and he is ready to attack you.
Your enemy's anger is useless!
14 The people who have trouble and pain
will soon become free.
They will not stay in the prison of death.
They will have all the food that they need.
15 Remember that I am the Lord your God.
I shake the sea so that its waves roar!
My name is the Lord Almighty.
16 I have given you my message
to speak on my behalf.
I have kept you safe in my hand.
I hung up the sky like a curtain,
and I made the foundation of the earth.
I say to Zion, “You are my people.” ’
17 Wake up, people in Jerusalem! Get ready!
The Lord has been angry with you,
and he has punished you.
You had to receive all of his anger,
like you were drinking strong wine from a cup.
Now that you have drunk it all,
you cannot stand up straight!
18 Among all of Jerusalem's people,
there was nobody left to be your leader.
There was nobody who could take care of you.
19 War and famine have destroyed you.
Both those terrible things have happened to you.
Who feels sorry for you?
Who is there to comfort you?
20 Your children have become weak,
and they lie on the ground at the side of every street.
They are like deer that a trap has caught.
The anger of the Lord your God has made them helpless.
He has warned them loudly.
21 So listen to this, you people who are in trouble.
You walk like drunk people,
but wine has not done that to you.
22 The Lord God who is your Lord stands beside his people. He says,
‘Look! Now I have taken the cup of my punishment out of your hand.
You will no longer have to drink the strong wine of my anger
that makes you drunk.
23 Instead, I will give it to your cruel enemies
to punish them.
They said to you, “Lie down on the ground,
so that we can walk over you.”
You made your backs become like the ground.
You became like a street for your enemies to walk on.’
God will make Jerusalem safe again[d]
52 Wake up, Zion!
Be ready to show your strength!
Jerusalem, God's holy city,
Put on your beautiful clothes!
Foreign people who do not serve God
will not attack your city again.
2 Shake off the dirt, Jerusalem!
Get up and sit on your throne.
People of Zion, you are no longer prisoners,
so take the chains off your neck.
3 This is what the Lord says to you:
‘I received no money when I sold you.
And I will not pay anything to make you free again.’
4 The Almighty Lord says,
‘Long ago, my people went to live for some time in Egypt.
At a later time, Assyria's army was cruel to them.
5 But now, what is happening?
An enemy has taken my people away as slaves,
for no good reason.[e]
Their leaders boast loudly,
and they insult me all the time.
6 So I will cause my people to know my name.
When all this happens, they will know
that I am the God who speaks to them.
I tell them that I am with them.’
7 Somebody is coming across the mountains
to bring good news to us!
It is a beautiful thing to see him run towards us!
He has come to tell us that there will be peace,
because God will save our city.
He says to Zion,
‘Your God rules as king!’
8 Listen! The guards on the city's walls are shouting!
They all shout together with joy!
They can see for themselves
that the Lord is returning to Zion.
9 Jerusalem, your buildings have become heaps of stones,
but now you can all shout together with joy!
Sing aloud, because the Lord has comforted his people.
He has made Jerusalem safe again.
10 The Lord has shown all the nations how strong he is.
They can all see his holy power.
People all over the world will know
that our God has rescued his people.
11 Leave! Leave! Go out from there.[f]
Do not touch anything that is unclean.
Leave that foreign place!
The people who carry the Lord's special things
must keep themselves pure.
12 But you will not have to hurry and run away.
No, the Lord, Israel's God, will keep you safe.
He will lead you at the front,
and he will be your guard at the back.
The Lord's Servant
13 Look! My servant will do well.
He will move up to a high place
where people will honour him as great.
14 At one time, when people saw him,
they were very upset.
His body became completely spoiled,
so that he no longer seemed to be a man.
He did not seem to have a human body.
15 But now, he will cause the people in many nations
to be very surprised!
Kings will have nothing to say
when they see how great he is.
They will see something new
that nobody had told them about.
They will understand new things
that they had not heard about before.
53 Will anyone believe
the news that we have to tell people?[g]
Will anyone understand
how the Lord has used his great power?
2 God's servant grew up in front of him,
like a young, green plant,
with its roots in dry ground.
He was not handsome.
He did not seem like a great king.
We did not see him as a special person.
There was nothing to see
that would make us want to be with him.
3 People did not respect him.
They refused to accept him.
He was a man who received much pain.
He knew what it felt like to be weak and ill.
People did not even want to look at him.
They did not respect him.
We decided that he was worth nothing.
4 But he took away all our weakness!
He carried our pain for us.
We thought that he was receiving punishment for his own sins.
We thought that God was causing him to suffer.
5 But it was our sins that caused his wounds.
The bad things that we had done crushed him.
The punishment that he received
has brought peace to us.
The wounds that he received
have made us well.
6 We have all turned away,
like sheep that take the wrong path.
Each of us has turned to follow our own way.
But the Lord has taken all our sins
and put the punishment on him.
7 People were cruel to him,
and he received much pain.
But he did not say anything to complain.
He was like a lamb that people were leading away to kill.
He was like a sheep when they are cutting off its wool,
but it makes no noise.
In the same way, he did not say anything.
8 They spoke lies to accuse him in court.
Then they led him away to kill him.
And nobody at that time said that it was wrong.
His life in this world quickly came to an end.
And it was the sins of our own people that caused him to die.
9 They decided to bury him with wicked people.
But his body was put in a rich man's grave.
He had not done anything to hurt anyone.
He had not told lies to deceive people.
10 But it was the Lord who chose to hurt his servant.
He caused his servant to receive much pain.
His servant died to remove people's guilt.
As a result, God will bless him with many descendants,
and he will have a long life.
What the Lord wants will happen,
because of what his servant does.
11 When God's servant sees the result of his pain,
he will understand what he has done.
And he will be happy.
The Lord says,
‘My righteous servant will cause many people to be “not guilty”,
because he will take the punishment for all their sins.
12 So I will put him in a place of honour,
as a great person deserves.
He will share the good things that powerful men receive
when they have won a battle.
He deserves this, because he agreed to die as a sacrifice.
People thought that he himself was a sinner
when he took away the sins of many people.
He prayed that God would forgive sinners.’
Be very careful how you live
5 You are God's children and he loves you very much. So you must try to be like him. 2 Show that you love other people. Remember how much Christ loved us. He gave himself as a sacrifice on our behalf. He offered himself in a way that pleased God, like a sacrifice with a lovely smell.
3 So, as God's people, you must never have sex with anyone that you are not married to. Do not do any kind of disgusting thing like that. Do not want many things for yourselves, just to make you happy. That is not how God's people should live. 4 Do not speak in a way which uses dirty words. Do not talk about silly things, like fools do. It is not right for God's people to talk like that. Instead, you should speak in a way which shows that you are thanking God.
5 You can be sure about this: If anyone has sex in a wrong way, that person does not belong to God's people. Nobody who does any kind of disgusting thing belongs to God's people. People who want many things just to please themselves are like people who worship an idol. They also do not belong to God's people. Nobody like that belongs to the kingdom where Christ and God rule. They will not receive the good things that God has prepared for his people.
6 Do not let anyone have a chance to deceive you with a false message about those kinds of bad things. God will certainly punish people who do not obey him. 7 So keep away from those kinds of people. 8 Once your minds were completely in the dark. But now you belong to the Lord. As a result, you have become full of light. So now you must live as people who belong to the light. 9 The light helps you to live in a way that is good, right and true. 10 You should learn more and more to do the things that please the Lord. 11 People whose minds are in the dark do things that have no good purpose. Keep away from wrong things like that. Instead, show how bad those things really are. 12 People like that should be ashamed of the things that they do secretly. Those things are too bad for us even to talk about. 13 But when God's light shines on something, people can see clearly its true nature. 14 Everything that becomes clear to see is in the light. That is why it says:
‘Wake up, you people who are asleep!
Rise up from among the dead people!
Then Christ will shine his light on you.’[a]
15 So you must be very careful how you live. Live like people who are wise. Do not live like fools. 16 Many bad things are happening in these days. So, whenever you have a chance to do something good, do as much as you can. 17 Do not live like fools. But instead, understand what the Lord wants you to do. 18 Do not drink too much wine so that you become drunk. That will destroy your life. Instead, let God's Spirit fill you. 19 He will help you to speak to each other with all kinds of spiritual songs. Sing psalms from the Bible, and Christian songs. Praise the Lord with songs from inside yourselves. 20 And always thank God, the Father, for everything, by our Lord Jesus Christ's name.
Wives and husbands
21 Serve one another to show that you respect Christ as your master.
22 Wives, obey your own husbands, as you obey the Lord. 23 A husband has authority over his wife, in the same way that Christ has authority over the church. The church is like Christ's body. As its head, he saves her. 24 As the church serves Christ as its master, so wives should serve their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church. He even agreed to die on its behalf. 26 He did that to make us completely clean, as the people of God. It was like he washed us with water, as he brought God's message to us. 27 Christ himself did this to bring us to himself as a beautiful group of his people. His church would belong to him completely. It would be pure, without anything bad to spoil it.
28 So husbands should love their wives, just as they love their own bodies. A man who loves his wife shows that he loves himself. 29 There is nobody who hates his own body. Everyone feeds his body and he takes care of it. In the same way, the church is like Christ's body that he takes care of. 30 We are like the parts of Christ's body. 31 The Bible says this: ‘When a man marries, he leaves his father and his mother. Instead, God joins the man and his wife together. The two people become like one body.’[b] 32 This is God's secret and it is difficult to understand. But I am saying that it teaches us about Christ and the church. 33 But each one of you husbands should understand this: love your own wife as you love yourself. And every wife among you must respect her husband.
19 God, you know that people are insulting me.
They laugh at me
to make me feel ashamed.
You can see what all my enemies are doing.
20 When they insult me,
it makes me very upset.
I feel helpless.
I hoped that someone would be kind and help me,
but there was nobody.
I wanted someone to comfort me,
but I did not find anyone.
21 Instead, my enemies put poison in my food.
When I was thirsty,
they gave me vinegar to drink.[a]
22 Please God, cause their feasts to become a trap for them.
Let it bring trouble to them and their friends.
23 Let their eyes be in the dark
so that they cannot see.
Let their bodies become weak.
24 Yes, punish them,
because you are so angry with them!
25 Let their homes become empty,
so that nobody lives in them any more.
26 Do this, because they chase after
the people that you have already punished.
They talk about the pain
of the people that you have hurt.
27 Make a note of all their sins.
Do not ever forgive them,
so that they are righteous.
28 Remove their names from the book of living people.
Do not write their names
on the list of righteous people.
29 But I have pain in my body
and trouble in my mind.
God, rescue me and keep me safe!
30 I will sing to praise God's name!
I will thank him because he is great!
31 That will please the Lord more
than if I offer him an ox,
or a great bull with horns.[b]
32 When humble people see it,
they will be very happy.
People who want to serve God
will become strong in their lives.
33 For the Lord listens to the prayers of poor people.
He does not forget to help his people
when they are prisoners.
34 Heaven and earth should praise him!
The seas and everything that lives in them
should praise him!
35 For God will rescue Zion's people.
He will build again Judah's cities.
Then his people will live there.
The land will belong to them again.
36 Then the descendants of his servants
will have the land for themselves.
The people who love God
will live there safely.
7 22. A fool cannot understand wisdom. He has nothing to say when leaders meet.
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