The Daily Audio Bible
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5 [a]Now you are walled around with a wall;[b]
siege is laid against us;
with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel
upon the cheek.(A)
The Ruler from Bethlehem
2 [c]But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.(B)
3 Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has brought forth;
then the rest of his kindred shall return
to the people of Israel.(C)
4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth,(D)
5 and he shall be the one of peace.
If the Assyrians come into our land
and tread upon our soil,[d]
we will raise against them seven shepherds
and eight rulers.(E)
6 They shall rule the land of Assyria with the sword
and the land of Nimrod with the drawn sword;[e]
they[f] shall rescue us from the Assyrians
if they come into our land
or tread within our border.(F)
The Future Role of the Remnant
7 Then the remnant of Jacob,
surrounded by many peoples,
shall be like dew from the Lord,
like showers on the grass,
which do not depend upon people
or wait for any mortal.(G)
8 And among the nations the remnant of Jacob,
surrounded by many peoples,
shall be like a lion among the animals of the forest,
like a young lion among the flocks of sheep,
which, when it goes through, treads down
and tears in pieces, with no one to deliver.(H)
9 Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries,
and all your enemies shall be cut off.(I)
10 On that day, says the Lord,
I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots;(J)
11 and I will cut off the cities of your land
and destroy all your strongholds;(K)
12 and I will cut off sorceries from your hand,
and you shall have no more soothsayers;(L)
13 and I will cut off your images
and your pillars from among you,
and you shall bow down no more
to the work of your hands;
14 and I will uproot your sacred poles[g] from among you
and destroy your towns.(M)
15 And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance
on the nations that did not obey.(N)
God Challenges Israel
6 Hear what the Lord says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.(O)
2 Hear, you mountains, the case of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth,
for the Lord has a case against his people,
and he will contend with Israel.(P)
3 “O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!(Q)
4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from the house of slavery,
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.(R)
5 O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”(S)
What God Requires
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”(T)
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?(U)
Cheating and Violence to Be Punished
9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city
(and he shall save those who fear his name[h]):
Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city![i]
10 Can I forget[j] the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked
and the despicable false measure?(V)
11 Can I tolerate wicked scales
and a bag of dishonest weights?(W)
12 Your[k] wealthy are full of violence;
your[l] inhabitants speak lies
with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
13 Therefore I have begun[m] to strike you down,
making you desolate because of your sins.(X)
14 You shall eat but not be satisfied,
and there shall be a gnawing hunger within you;
you shall put away but not save,
and what you save, I will hand over to the sword.(Y)
15 You shall sow but not reap;
you shall tread olives but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes but not drink wine.(Z)
16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri[n]
and all the works of the house of Ahab,
and you have followed their counsels.
Therefore I will make you a desolation and your[o] inhabitants an object of hissing,
so you shall bear the scorn of my people.(AA)
The Total Corruption of the People
7 Woe is me! For I have become like one who,
after the summer fruit has been gathered,
after the vintage has been gleaned,
finds no cluster to eat;
there is no first-ripe fig for which I hunger.(AB)
2 The faithful have disappeared from the land,
and there is no one left who is upright;
they all lie in wait for blood,
and they hunt each other with nets.(AC)
3 Their hands are skilled to do evil;
the official and the judge ask for a bribe,
and the powerful dictate what they desire;
thus they pervert justice.[p](AD)
4 The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
The day of their[q] sentinels, of their[r] punishment, has come;
now their confusion is at hand.(AE)
5 Put no trust in a friend;
have no confidence in a loved one;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your embrace,
6 for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
your enemies are members of your own household.(AF)
7 But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.(AG)
Penitence and Trust in God
8 Do not rejoice over me, my enemies;[s]
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.(AH)
9 I must bear the indignation of the Lord
because I have sinned against him,
until he takes my side
and executes judgment for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
I shall see his vindication.(AI)
10 Then my enemies[t] will see,
and shame will cover those[u] who said to me,
“Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will see their[v] downfall;[w]
now they[x] will be trodden down
like the mire of the streets.(AJ)
A Prophecy of Restoration
11 A day for the building of your walls!
On that day the boundary shall be far extended.(AK)
12 On that day they will come to you
from Assyria to[y] Egypt
and from Egypt to the River,
from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.(AL)
13 But the earth will be desolate
because of its inhabitants,
for the fruit of their doings.(AM)
14 Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock that belongs to you,
which lives alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land;
let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of old.
15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,
show us[z] marvelous things.(AN)
16 The nations shall see and be ashamed
of all their might;
they shall lay their hands on their mouths;
their ears shall be deaf;(AO)
17 they shall lick dust like a snake,
like the crawling things of the earth;
they shall come trembling out of their fortresses;
they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God,
and they shall stand in fear of you.(AP)
God’s Compassion and Steadfast Love
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over the transgression
of the remnant of his possession?
He does not retain his anger forever
because he delights in showing steadfast love.(AQ)
19 He will again have compassion upon us;
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our[aa] sins
into the depths of the sea.(AR)
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our ancestors
from the days of old.(AS)
The 144,000 of Israel Sealed
7 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree.(A) 2 I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to damage earth and sea, 3 saying, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.”(B)
4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel:(C)
5 From the tribe of Judah twelve thousand sealed,
from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand,
6 from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand,
7 from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand,
8 from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand,
from the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand sealed.
The Multitude from Every Nation
9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.(D) 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!”(E)
11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”(F)
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you are the one who knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.(G)
15 For this reason they are before the throne of God
and worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.(H)
16 They will hunger no more and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat,(I)
17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”(J)
Psalm 135
Praise for God’s Goodness and Might
1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the name of the Lord;
give praise, O servants of the Lord,
2 you who stand in the house of the Lord,
in the courts of the house of our God.(A)
3 Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;
sing to his name, for he is gracious.(B)
4 For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,
Israel as his own possession.(C)
5 For I know that the Lord is great;
our Lord is above all gods.(D)
6 Whatever the Lord pleases he does,
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all deeps.(E)
7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth;
he makes lightnings for the rain
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.(F)
8 He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,
both humans and animals;(G)
9 he sent signs and wonders
into your midst, O Egypt,
against Pharaoh and all his servants.(H)
10 He struck down many nations
and killed mighty kings—(I)
11 Sihon, king of the Amorites,
and Og, king of Bashan,
and all the kingdoms of Canaan—(J)
12 and gave their land as a heritage,
a heritage to his people Israel.(K)
13 Your name, O Lord, endures forever,
your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages.(L)
14 For the Lord will vindicate his people
and have compassion on his servants.(M)
15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.(N)
16 They have mouths, but they do not speak;
they have eyes, but they do not see;
17 they have ears, but they do not hear,
a nose, but there is no breath in their mouths.
18 Those who make them
and all who trust them
shall become like them.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.