341 Draw near , O nations , to hear ; and listen , O peoples ! Let the earth and all it contains hear , and the world and all that springs from it. 2 For the Lord'S indignation is against all the nations , And His wrath against all their armies ; He has utterly destroyed them, He has given them over to slaughter . 3 So their slain will be thrown out, And their corpses will give off their stench , And the mountains will be drenched with their blood . 4 And all the host of heaven will wear away , And the sky will be rolled up like a scroll ; All their hosts will also wither away As a leaf withers from the vine , Or as one withers from the fig tree . 5 For My sword is satiated in heaven , Behold it shall descend for judgment upon Edom And upon the people whom I have devoted to destruction . 6 The sword of the Lord is filled with blood , It is sated with fat , with the blood of lambs and goats , With the fat of the kidneys of rams . For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah And a great slaughter in the land of Edom . 7 Wild oxen will also fall with them And young bulls with strong ones ; Thus their land will be soaked with blood , And their dust become greasy with fat . 8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance , A year of recompense for the cause of Zion .
9 Its streams will be turned into pitch , And its loose earth into brimstone , And its land will become burning pitch . 10 It will not be quenched night or day ; Its smoke will go up forever . From generation to generation it will be desolate ; None will pass through it forever and ever . 11 But pelican and hedgehog will possess it, And owl and raven will dwell in it; And He will stretch over it the line of desolation And the plumb line of emptiness . 12 Its nobles -there is no one there Whom they may proclaim king - And all its princes will be nothing . 13 Thorns will come up in its fortified towers , Nettles and thistles in its fortified cities ; It will also be a haunt of jackals And an abode of ostriches . 14 The desert creatures will meet with the wolves , The hairy goat also will cry to its kind ; Yes , the night monster will settle there And will find herself a resting place . 15 The tree snake will make its nest and lay eggs there , And it will hatch and gather them under its protection . Yes , the hawks will be gathered there , Every one with its kind . 16 Seek from the book of the Lord , and read : Not one of these will be missing ; None e will lack its mate . For His mouth has commanded , And His Spirit has gathered them. 17 He has cast the lot for them, And His hand has divided it to them by line . They shall possess it forever e ; From generation to generation they will dwell in it.
351 The wilderness and the desert will be glad , And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom ; Like the crocus 2 It will blossom profusely And rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy . The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, The majesty of Carmel and Sharon . They will see the glory of the Lord , The majesty of our God . 3 Encourage the exhausted , and strengthen the feeble e . 4 Say to those with anxious heart , "Take courage , fear not. Behold , your God will come with vengeance ; The recompense of God will come , But He will save you."
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped . 6 Then the lame will leap like a deer , And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy . For waters will break forth in the wilderness And streams in the Arabah . 7 The scorched land will become a pool And the thirsty ground springs of water ; In the haunt of jackals , its resting place , Grass becomes reeds and rushes . 8 A highway will be there , a roadway , And it will be called the Highway of Holiness . The unclean will not travel on it, But it will be for him who walks that way , And fools will not wander on it. 9 No lion will be there , Nor will any vicious beast go up on it; These will not be found there . But the redeemed will walk there, 10 And the ransomed of the Lord will return And come with joyful shouting to Zion , With everlasting joy upon their heads . They will find gladness and joy , And sorrow and sighing will flee away .
361 Now in the fourteenth e year of King Hezekiah , Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them. 2 And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army . And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway of the fuller's field . 3 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah , who was over the household , and Shebna the scribe , and Joah the son of Asaph , the recorder , came out to him. 4 Then Rabshakeh said to them, "Say now to Hezekiah , 'Thus says the great king , the king of Assyria , "What is this confidence that you have ? 5 "I say , 'Your counsel and strength for the war are only empty words .' Now on whom do you rely , that you have rebelled against me? 6 "Behold , you rely on the staff of this crushed reed , even on Egypt , on which if a man leans , it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. 7 "But if you say to me, 'We trust in the Lord our God ,' is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem , 'You shall worship before this altar '? 8 "Now therefore, come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria , and I will give you two thousand horses , if you are able on your part to set riders on them. 9 "How then can you repulse e one official of the least of my master's servants and rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen ? 10 "Have I now come up without the Lord'S approval against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, 'Go up against this land and destroy it.' ""'
11 Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh , "Speak now to your servants in Aramaic , for we understand it; and do not speak with us in Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall ." 12 But Rabshakeh said , "Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words , and not to the men who sit on the wall , doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?" 13 Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in Judean and said , "Hear the words of the great king , the king of Assyria . 14 "Thus says the king , 'Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you; 15 nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord , saying , "The Lord will surely deliver us, this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria ." 16 'Do not listen to Hezekiah ,' for thus says the king of Assyria , 'Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his vine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the waters of his own cistern , 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land , a land of grain and new wine , a land of bread and vineyards . 18 'Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you, saying , " The Lord will deliver us." Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria ? 19 'Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad ? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim ? And when have they delivered Samaria from my hand ? 20 'Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand , that the Lord would deliver Jerusalem from my hand ?' " 21 But they were silent and answered him not a word ; for the king's commandment was, "Do not answer him." 22 Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah , who was over the household , and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph , the recorder , came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of Rabshakeh .
21 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea , and for all those who have not personally seen my face , 2 that their hearts may be encouraged , having been knit together in love , and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding , resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery , that is, Christ Himself, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge .
4 I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument . 5 For even though I am absent in body , nevertheless I am with you in spirit , rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ . 6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord , so walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith , just as you were instructed , and overflowing with gratitude .
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception , according to the tradition of men , according to the elementary principles of the world , rather than e according to Christ . 9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form , 10 and in Him you have been made complete , and He is the head over all rule and authority ; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands , in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism , in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God , who raised Him from the dead .
13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh , He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions , 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way , having nailed it to the cross . 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities , He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day- 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come ; but the substance belongs to Christ . 18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels , taking his stand on visions he has seen , inflated without cause by his fleshly mind , 19 and not holding fast to the head , from whom the entire body , being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments , grows with a growth which is from God . 20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world , why , as if you were living in the world , do you submit yourself to decrees , such as, 21 "Do not handle , do not taste , do not touch !" 22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with use )-in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men ? 23 These are matters which have , to be sure , the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body , but are of no e value against fleshly indulgence .
