A Song of Trust in the LORD's Protection

261 In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; salvation doth he appoint for walls and bulwarks. 2 Open ye the gates, and the righteous nation which keepeth faithfulness shall enter in. 3 Thou wilt keep in perfect peace the mind stayed [on thee], for he confideth in thee. 4 Confide ye in Jehovah for ever; for in Jah, Jehovah, is the rock of ages.

5 For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low, he layeth it low to the ground, he bringeth it even to the dust. 6 The foot shall tread it down,—the feet of the afflicted, the steps of the poor. 7 The way of the just is uprightness: thou, the Upright, dost make the path of the just even. 8 Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Jehovah, have we waited for thee; the desire of [our] soul is to thy name, and to thy memorial. 9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness. 10 If favour be shewn to the wicked, he doth not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness he dealeth unjustly, and beholdeth not the majesty of Jehovah. 11 Jehovah, thy hand is lifted up, but they do not see: [yet] they shall see [thy] jealousy [for] the people, and be ashamed; yea, the fire which is for thine adversaries shall devour them.

12 Jehovah, thou wilt ordain peace for us; for thou also hast wrought all our works for us. 13 Jehovah our God, other lords than thee have had dominion over us; by thee only will we make mention of thy name. 14 [They are] dead, they shall not live; deceased, they shall not rise: for thou hast visited and destroyed them, and made all memory of them to perish. 15 Thou hast increased the nation, Jehovah, thou hast increased the nation: thou art glorified. Thou hadst removed [it] far [unto] all the ends of the earth. 16 Jehovah, in trouble they sought thee; they poured out [their] whispered prayer when thy chastening was upon them. 17 As a woman with child, that draweth near her delivery, is in travail, [and] crieth out in her pangs; so have we been before thee, Jehovah. 18 We have been with child, we have been in travail, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought the deliverance of the land, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. 19 Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing in triumph, ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is the dew of the morning, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.

20 Come, my people, enter into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself just for a little moment, until the indignation be past. 21 For behold, Jehovah cometh out of his place to visit the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth upon them; and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

The Deliverance and Ingathering of Israel

271 In that day Jehovah, with his sore and great and strong sword, will visit leviathan the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the crooked serpent; and he will slay the monster that is in the sea. 2 In that day [there shall be] a vineyard of pure wine; sing concerning it: 3 I Jehovah keep it, I will water it every moment; lest any harm it, I will keep it night and day. 4 Fury is not in me. Oh that I had briars [and] thorns in battle against me! I would march against them, I would burn them together. 5 Or let him take hold of my strength; let him make peace with me: [yea,] let him make peace with me. 6 In the future Jacob shall take root; Israel shall blossom and bud, and they shall fill the face of the world with fruit.

7 Hath he smitten him according to the smiting of those that smote him? Is he slain according to the slaughter of those slain by him? 8 In measure, when sending her away, didst thou contend with her: he hath taken [her] away with his rough wind in the day of the east wind. 9 By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit of the taking away of his sin: when he shall make all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are crumbled in pieces,—the Asherahs and the sun-images shall not stand. 10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation abandoned and forsaken like a wilderness; there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume its boughs. 11 When its branches are withered they shall be broken off; women shall come [and] set them on fire. For it is a people of no intelligence; therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he who formed them will shew them no favour. 12 And it shall come to pass in that day, that Jehovah shall beat out from the flood of the river unto the torrent of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, [ye] children of Israel. 13 And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] the great trumpet shall be blown; and they shall come that were perishing in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall worship Jehovah in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

Christ's Humiliation and Exaltation

21 If then [there be] any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of [the] Spirit, if any bowels and compassions, 2 fulfil my joy, that ye may think the same thing, having the same love, joined in soul, thinking one thing; 3 [let] nothing [be] in the spirit of strife or vain glory, but, in lowliness of mind, each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves; 4 regarding not each his own [qualities], but each those of others also. 5 For let this mind be in you which [was] also in Christ Jesus; 6 who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; 7 but emptied himself, taking a bondman's form, taking his place in [the] likeness of men; 8 and having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and [that the] death of [the] cross. 9 Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal [beings], 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord to God [the] Father's glory.

Shining as Lights in the World

12 So that, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to [his] good pleasure.

14 Do all things without murmurings and reasonings, 15 that ye may be harmless and simple, irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation; among whom ye appear as lights in [the] world, 16 holding forth [the] word of life, so as to be a boast for me in Christ's day, that I have not run in vain nor laboured in vain. 17 But if also I am poured out as a libation on the sacrifice and ministration of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice in common with you all. 18 In like manner do ye also rejoice, and rejoice with me.

Timothy and Epaphroditus

19 But I hope in [the] Lord Jesus to send Timotheus to you shortly, that I also may be refreshed, knowing how ye get on. 20 For I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on. 21 For all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ. 22 But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child a father, he has served with me in the work of the glad tidings. 23 Him therefore I hope to send immediately, as soon as I shall see how it goes with me: 24 but I trust in [the] Lord that I myself also shall soon come; 25 but I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-workman and fellow-soldier, but your messenger and minister to my need, 26 since he had a longing desire after you all, and was distressed because ye had heard that he was sick; 27 for he was also sick close to death, but God had mercy on him, and not indeed on him alone, but also on me, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. 28 I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that seeing him ye might again rejoice, and that I might be the less sorrowful. 29 Receive him therefore in [the] Lord with all joy, and hold such in honour; 30 because for the sake of the work he drew near even to death, venturing his life that he might fill up what lacked in your ministration toward me.