341 Draw in close now, nations. Listen carefully, you people. Pay attention! Earth, you too, and everything in you. World, and all that comes from you. 2 And here's why: God is angry, good and angry with all the nations, So blazingly angry at their arms and armies that he's going to rid earth of them, wipe them out. 3 The corpses, thrown in a heap, will stink like the town dump in midsummer, Their blood flowing off the mountains like creeks in spring runoff. 4 Stars will fall out of the sky like overripe, rotting fruit in the orchard, And the sky itself will be folded up like a blanket and put away in a closet. All that army of stars, shriveled to nothing, like leaves and fruit in autumn, dropping and rotting! 5 "Once I've finished with earth and sky, I'll start in on Edom. I'll come down hard on Edom, a people I've slated for total termination." 6 God has a sword, thirsty for blood and more blood, a sword hungry for well-fed flesh, Lamb and goat blood, the suet-rich kidneys of rams. Yes, God has scheduled a sacrifice in Bozrah, the capital, the whole country of Edom a slaughterhouse. 7 A wholesale slaughter, wild animals and farm animals alike slaughtered. The whole country soaked with blood, all the ground greasy with fat. 8 It's God's scheduled time for vengeance, the year all Zion's accounts are settled.
9 Edom's streams will flow sluggish, thick with pollution, the soil sterile, poisoned with waste, The whole country a smoking, stinking garbage dump - 10 The fires burning day and night, the skies black with endless smoke. Generation after generation of wasteland - no more travelers through this country! 11 Vultures and skunks will police the streets; owls and crows will feel at home there. God will reverse creation. Chaos! He will cancel fertility. Emptiness! 12 Leaders will have no one to lead. They'll name it No Kingdom There, A country where all kings and princes are unemployed. 13 Thistles will take over, covering the castles, fortresses conquered by weeds and thornbushes. Wild dogs will prowl the ruins, ostriches have the run of the place. 14 Wildcats and hyenas will hunt together, demons and devils dance through the night. The night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious, will establish permanent quarters. 15 Scavenging carrion birds will breed and brood, infestations of ominous evil. 16 Get and read God's book: None of this is going away, this breeding, brooding evil. God has personally commanded it all. His Spirit set it in motion. 17 God has assigned them their place, decreed their fate in detail. This is permanent - generation after generation, the same old thing.
351 Wilderness and desert will sing joyously, the badlands will celebrate and flower - 2 bursting into blossom, a symphony of song and color. Mountain glories of Lebanon - a gift. Awesome Carmel, stunning Sharon - gifts. God's resplendent glory, fully on display. God awesome, God majestic. 3 Energize the limp hands, strengthen the rubbery knees. 4 Tell fearful souls, "Courage! Take heart! God is here, right here, on his way to put things right And redress all wrongs. He's on his way! He'll save you!"
5 Blind eyes will be opened, deaf ears unstopped, 6 Lame men and women will leap like deer, the voiceless break into song. Springs of water will burst out in the wilderness, streams flow in the desert. 7 Hot sands will become a cool oasis, thirsty ground a splashing fountain. Even lowly jackals will have water to drink, and barren grasslands flourish richly. 8 There will be a highway called the Holy Road. No one rude or rebellious is permitted on this road. It's for God's people exclusively - impossible to get lost on this road. Not even fools can get lost on it. 9 No lions on this road, no dangerous wild animals - Nothing and no one dangerous or threatening. Only the redeemed will walk on it. 10 The people God has ransomed will come back on this road. They'll sing as they make their way home to Zion, unfading halos of joy encircling their heads, Welcomed home with gifts of joy and gladness as all sorrows and sighs scurry into the night.
361 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria made war on all the fortress cities of Judah and took them. 2 Then the king of Assyria sent his general, the "Rabshekah," accompanied by a huge army, from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah. The general stopped at the aqueduct where it empties into the upper pool on the road to the public laundry. 3 Three men went out to meet him: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, in charge of the palace; Shebna the secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, the official historian. 4 The Rabshekah said to them, "Tell Hezekiah that the Great King, the king of Assyria, says this: 'What kind of backing do you think you have against me? 5 You're bluffing and I'm calling your bluff. Your words are no match for my weapons. What kind of backup do you have now that you've rebelled against me? 6 Egypt? Don't make me laugh. Egypt is a rubber crutch. Lean on Egypt and you'll end up flat on your face. That's all Pharaoh king of Egypt is to anyone who leans on him. 7 And if you try to tell me, "We're leaning on our God," isn't it a bit late? Hasn't Hezekiah just gotten rid of all the places of worship, telling you, "You've got to worship at this altar"? 8 "'Be reasonable. Face the facts: My master the king of Assyria will give you two thousand horses if you can put riders on them. 9 You can't do it, can you? So how do you think, depending on flimsy Egypt's chariots and riders, you can stand up against even the lowest-ranking captain in my master's army? 10 "'And besides, do you think I came all this way to destroy this land without first getting God's blessing? It was your God who told me, Make war on this land. Destroy it.'"
11 Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah answered the Rabshekah, "Please talk to us in Aramaic. We understand Aramaic. Don't talk to us in Hebrew within earshot of all the people gathered around." 12 But the Rabshekah replied, "Do you think my master has sent me to give this message to your master and you but not also to the people clustered here? It's their fate that's at stake. They're the ones who are going to end up eating their own excrement and drinking their own urine." 13 Then the Rabshekah stood up and called out loudly in Hebrew, the common language, "Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria! 14 Don't listen to Hezekiah's lies. He can't save you. 15 And don't pay any attention to Hezekiah's pious sermons telling you to lean on God, telling you 'God will save us, depend on it. God won't let this city fall to the king of Assyria.' 16 "Don't listen to Hezekiah. Listen to the king of Assyria's offer: 'Make peace with me. Come and join me. Everyone will end up with a good life, with plenty of land and water, 17 and eventually something far better. I'll turn you loose in wide open spaces, with more than enough fertile and productive land for everyone.' 18 Don't let Hezekiah mislead you with his lies, 'God will save us.' Has that ever happened? Has any god in history ever gotten the best of the king of Assyria? 19 Look around you. Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? The gods of Sepharvaim? Did the gods do anything for Samaria? 20 Name one god that has ever saved its countries from me. So what makes you think that God could save Jerusalem from me?'" 21 The three men were silent. They said nothing, for the king had already commanded, "Don't answer him." 22 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the court historian, tearing their clothes in defeat and despair, went back and reported what the Rabshekah had said to Hezekiah.
21 I want you to realize that I continue to work as hard as I know how for you, and also for the Christians over at Laodicea. Not many of you have met me face-to-face, but that doesn't make any difference. Know that I'm on your side, right alongside you. You're not in this alone. 2 I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God's great mystery. 3 All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we've been shown the mystery!
4 I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or "the Secret." 5 I'm a long way off, true, and you may never lay eyes on me, but believe me, I'm on your side, right beside you. I am delighted to hear of the careful and orderly ways you conduct your affairs, and impressed with the solid substance of your faith in Christ. 6 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. 7 You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
8 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. 9 Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. 10 When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything. 11 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in - insiders - not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. 12 If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ.
13 When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive - right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, 14 the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's Cross. 15 He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
16 So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. 17 All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ. 18 Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. 19 They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us. 20 So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? 21 "Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!" 22 Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? 23 Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important.
