471 Come and take your seat in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; come down from your seat of power, and take your place on the earth, O daughter of the Chaldaeans: for you will never again seem soft and delicate. 2 Take the crushing-stones and get the meal crushed: take off your veil, put away your robe, let your legs be uncovered, go through the rivers. 3 The shame of your unclothed condition will be seen by all: I will give punishment without mercy, 4 Says the Lord who takes up our cause; the Lord of armies is his name, the Holy One of Israel. 5 Be seated in the dark without a word, O daughter of the Chaldaeans: for you will no longer be named, The Queen of Kingdoms. 6 I was angry with my people, I put shame on my heritage, and gave them into your hands: you had no mercy on them; you put a cruel yoke on those who were old;
7 And you said, I will be a queen for ever: you did not give attention to these things, and did not keep in mind what would come after. 8 So now take note of this, you who are given up to pleasure, living without fear of evil, saying in your heart, I am, and there is no one like me; I will never be a widow, or have my children taken from me. 9 But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day, the loss of children and of husband: in full measure they will come on you, for all your secret arts, and all your wonders. 10 For you had faith in your evil-doing; you said, No one sees me; by your wisdom and knowledge you have been turned out of the way: and you have said in your heart, I am, and there is no other. 11 Because of this evil will come on you, which may not be turned away for any price: and trouble will overtake you, from which no money will give salvation: destruction will come on you suddenly, without your knowledge. 12 Go on now with your secret arts, and all your wonder-working, to which you have given yourself up from your earliest days; it may be that they will be of profit to you, or by them you may put fear into your attackers. 13 But your mind is troubled by the number of your guides: let them now come forward for your salvation: the measurers of the heavens, the watchers of the stars, and those who are able to say from month to month what things are coming on you. 14 Truly, they have become like dry stems, they have been burned in the fire; they are not able to keep themselves safe from the power of the flame: it is not a coal for warming them, or a fire by which a man may be seated. 15 Small profit have you had from those who, from your earliest days, got great profit out of you; they have gone in flight, every one straight before him, and you have no saviour.
481 Give ear to this, O family of Jacob, you who are named by the name of Israel, and have come out of the body of Judah; who take oaths by the name of the Lord, and make use of the name of the God of Israel, but not truly and not in good faith. 2 For they say that they are of the holy town, and put their faith in the God of Israel: the Lord of armies is his name. 3 I gave word in the past of the things which came about; they came from my mouth, and I made them clear: suddenly I did them, and they came about. 4 Because I saw that your heart was hard, and that your neck was an iron cord, and your brow brass; 5 For this reason I made it clear to you in the past, before it came I gave you word of it: for fear that you might say, My god did these things, and my pictured and metal images made them come about. 6 All this has come to your ears and you have seen it; will you not give witness to it? I am now making clear new things, even secret things, of which you had no knowledge. 7 They have only now been effected, and not in the past: and before this day they had not come to your ears; for fear that you might say, I had knowledge of them. 8 Truly you had no word of them, no knowledge of them; no news of them in the past had come to your ears; because I saw how false was your behaviour, and that your heart was turned against me from your earliest days.
9 Because of my name I will put away my wrath, and for my praise I will keep myself from cutting you off. 10 See, I have been testing you for myself like silver; I have put you through the fire of trouble. 11 For myself, even because of my name, I will do it; for I will not let my name be shamed; and my glory I will not give to another. 12 Give ear to me, Jacob, and Israel, my loved one; I am he, I am the first and I am the last. 13 Yes, by my hand was the earth placed on its base, and by my right hand the heavens were stretched out; at my word they take up their places. 14 Come together, all of you, and give ear; who among you has given news of these things? the Lord's loved one will do his pleasure with Babylon, and with the seed of the Chaldaeans. 15 I, even I, have given the word; I have sent for him: I have made him come, and have given effect to his undertakings.
16 Come near to me, and give ear to this; from the start I did not keep it secret; from the time of its coming into existence I was there: and now the Lord God has sent me, and given me his spirit. 17 The Lord who takes up your cause, the Holy One of Israel, says, I am the Lord your God, who is teaching you for your profit, guiding you by the way in which you are to go. 18 If only you had given ear to my orders, then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea: 19 Your seed would have been like the sand, and your offspring like the dust: your name would not be cut off or come to an end before me. 20 Go out of Babylon, go in flight from the Chaldaeans; with the sound of song make it clear, give the news, let the word go out even to the end of the earth: say, The Lord has taken up the cause of his servant Jacob. 21 They had no need of water when he was guiding them through the waste lands: he made water come out of the rock for them: the rock was parted and the waters came flowing out. 22 There is no peace, says the Lord, for the evil-doers.
491 Give ear, O sea-lands, to me; and take note, you peoples from far: I have been marked out by the Lord from the first; when I was still in my mother's body, he had my name in mind: 2 And he has made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shade of his hand he has kept me; and he has made me like a polished arrow, keeping me in his secret place; 3 And he said to me, You are my servant, Israel, in whom my glory will be seen; 4 And I said, I have undergone weariness for nothing, I have given my strength for no purpose or profit: but still the Lord will take up my cause, and my God will give me my reward. 5 And now, says the Lord, who made me his servant when I was still in my mother's body, so that I might make Jacob come back to him, and so that Israel might come together to him: and I was honoured in the eyes of the Lord, and my God became my strength. 6 It is not enough for one who is my servant to put the tribes of Jacob again in their place, and to get back those of Israel who have been sent away: my purpose is to give you as a light to the nations, so that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.
7 The Lord who takes up Israel's cause, even his Holy One, says to him whom men make sport of, who is hated by the nations, a servant of rulers: Kings will see and get up from their places, and chiefs will give worship: because of the Lord who keeps faith; even the Holy One of Israel who has taken you for himself.
8 This is the word of the Lord: I have given ear to you at a good time, and I have been your helper in a day of salvation: and I will keep you safe, and will make you a glory for the people, putting the land in order, and giving them the heritages which now are waste; 9 Saying to those who are in chains, Go free; to those who are in the dark, Come out into the light. They will get food by the way wherever they go, and have grass-lands on all the dry mountain-tops. 10 They will not be in need of food or drink, or be troubled by the heat or the sun: for he who has mercy on them will be their guide, taking them by the springs of water. 11 And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways will be lifted up. 12 See, these are coming from far; and these from the north and the west; and these from the land of Sinim.
13 Let your voice be loud in song, O heavens; and be glad, O earth; make sounds of joy, O mountains, for the Lord has given comfort to his people, and will have mercy on his crushed ones. 14 But Zion said, The Lord has given me up, I have gone from his memory. 15 Will a woman give up the child at her breast, will she be without pity for the fruit of her body? yes, these may, but I will not let you go out of my memory. 16 See, your name is marked on my hands; your walls are ever before me. 17 Your builders are coming quickly; your haters and those who made you waste will go out of you.
18 Let your eyes be lifted up round about, and see: they are all coming together to you. By my life, says the Lord, truly you will put them all on you as an ornament, and be clothed with them like a bride. 19 For though the waste places of your land have been given to destruction, now you will not be wide enough for your people, and those who made you waste will be far away. 20 The children to whom you gave birth in other lands will say in your ears, The place is not wide enough for me: make room for me to have a resting-place. 21 Then you will say in your heart, Who has given me all these children? when my children had been taken from me, and I was no longer able to have others, who took care of these? when I was by myself, where then were these? 22 This is the word of the Lord God: See, I will make a sign with my hand to the nations, and put up my flag for the peoples; and they will take up your sons on their beasts, and your daughters on their backs. 23 And kings will take care of you, and queens will give you their milk: they will go down on their faces before you, kissing the dust of your feet; and you will be certain that I am the Lord, and that those who put their hope in me will not be shamed.
24 Will the goods of war be taken from the strong man, or the prisoners of the cruel one be let go? 25 But the Lord says, Even the prisoners of the strong will be taken from him, and the cruel made to let go his goods: for I will take up your cause against your haters, and I will keep your children safe. 26 And the flesh of your attackers will be taken by themselves for food; and they will take their blood for drink, as if it was sweet wine: and all men will see that I the Lord am your saviour, even he who takes up your cause, the Strong One of Jacob.
41 And last of all, the prayer which we make to you from our heart and in the name of the Lord Jesus, is this: that as we made clear to you what sort of behaviour is pleasing to God, as in fact you are doing now, so you will go on in these ways, but more and more. 2 Because you have in mind the orders we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For the purpose of God for you is this: that you may be holy, and may keep yourselves from the desires of the flesh; 4 So that every one of you may keep his body holy and in honour; 5 Not in the passion of evil desires, like the Gentiles, who have no knowledge of God; 6 And that no man may make attempts to get the better of his brother in business: for the Lord is the judge in all these things, as we said to you before and gave witness. 7 Because it is God's purpose that our way of life may be not unclean but holy. 8 Whoever, then, goes against this word, goes against not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
9 But about loving the brothers, there is no need for me to say anything to you in this letter: for you have the teaching of God that love for one another is right and necessary; 10 And, truly, you are lovers of all the brothers in Macedonia; but it is our desire that your love may be increased still more; 11 And that you may take pride in being quiet and doing your business, working with your hands as we gave you orders; 12 That you may be respected by those who are outside, and may have need of nothing.
13 But it is our desire, brothers, that you may be certain about those who are sleeping; so that you may have no need for sorrow, as others have who are without hope. 14 For if we have faith that Jesus underwent death and came back again, even so those who are sleeping will come again with him by God's power. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are still living at the coming of the Lord, will not go before those who are sleeping. 16 Because the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a word of authority, with the voice of the chief angel, with the sound of a horn: and the dead in Christ will come to life first; 17 Then we who are still living will be taken up together with them into the clouds to see the Lord in the air: and so will we be for ever with the Lord. 18 So then, give comfort to one another with these words.
