| 28:1 | Woe to that wreath, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards, to the fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley-- to that city, the pride of those laid low by wine!
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| 28:2 | See, the Lord has one who is powerful and strong. Like a hailstorm and a destructive wind, like a driving rain and a flooding downpour, he will throw it forcefully to the ground.
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| 28:3 | That wreath, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards, will be trampled underfoot.
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| 28:4 | That fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley, will be like a fig ripe before harvest-- as soon as someone sees it and takes it in his hand, he swallows it.
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| 28:5 | In that day the LORD Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people.
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| 28:6 | He will be a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
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| 28:7 | And these also stagger from wine and reel from beer |
| 28:8 | All the tables are covered with vomit and there is not a spot without filth.
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| 28:9 | "Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children weaned from their milk, to those just taken from the breast?
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| 28:10 | For it is |
| 28:11 | Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people,
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| 28:12 | to whom he said, "This is the resting place, let the weary rest"; and, "This is the place of repose"-- but they would not listen.
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| 28:13 | So then, the word of the LORD to them will become |
| 28:14 | Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem.
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| 28:15 | You boast, "We have entered into a covenant with death, with the grave we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by, it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place."
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| 28:16 | So this is what the Sovereign LORD says |
| 28:17 | I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place.
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| 28:18 | Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement with the grave will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, you will be beaten down by it.
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| 28:19 | As often as it comes it will carry you away; morning after morning, by day and by night, it will sweep through." The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.
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| 28:20 | The bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.
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| 28:21 | The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon-- to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task.
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| 28:22 | Now stop your mocking, or your chains will become heavier; the Lord, the LORD Almighty, has told me of the destruction decreed against the whole land.
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| 28:23 | Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say.
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| 28:24 | When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil?
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| 28:25 | When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field?
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| 28:26 | His God instructs him and teaches him the right way.
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| 28:27 | Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cummin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a stick.
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| 28:28 | Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever. Though he drives the wheels of his threshing cart over it, his horses do not grind it.
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| 28:29 | All this also comes from the LORD Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom.
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| 29:1 | Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled! Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on.
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| 29:2 | Yet I will besiege Ariel; she will mourn and lament, she will be to me like an altar hearth.
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| 29:3 | I will encamp against you all around; I will encircle you with towers and set up my siege works against you.
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| 29:4 | Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper.
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| 29:5 | But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant,
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| 29:6 | the LORD Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire.
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| 29:7 | Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel, that attack her and her fortress and besiege her, will be as it is with a dream, with a vision in the night--
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| 29:8 | as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating, but he awakens, and his hunger remains; as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched. So will it be with the hordes of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion.
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| 29:9 | Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer.
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| 29:10 | The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep |
| 29:11 | For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I can"t; it is sealed."
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| 29:12 | Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I don"t know how to read."
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| 29:13 | The Lord says |
| 29:14 | Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."
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| 29:15 | Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, "Who sees us? Who will know?"
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| 29:16 | You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing"?
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| 29:17 | In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field and the fertile field seem like a forest?
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| 29:18 | In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.
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| 29:19 | Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
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| 29:20 | The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down--
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| 29:21 | those who with a word make a man out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.
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| 29:22 | Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house of Jacob |
| 29:23 | When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
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| 29:24 | Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction."
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| 3:1 | Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.
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| 3:2 | Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh.
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| 3:3 | For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh--
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| 3:4 | though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more |
| 3:5 | circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;
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| 3:6 | as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
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| 3:7 | But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
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| 3:8 | What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
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| 3:9 | and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
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| 3:10 | I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
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| 3:11 | and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
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| 3:12 | Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
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| 3:13 | Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do |
| 3:14 | I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
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| 3:15 | All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
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| 3:16 | Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
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| 3:17 | Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.
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| 3:18 | For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.
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| 3:19 | Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.
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| 3:20 | But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
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| 3:21 | who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
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