The Daily Audio Bible
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The Ruler From the Little Town of Bethlehem
5 Now, gather the troops, you daughter[a] of troops.
A siege is laid against us.
With a rod they will strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.[b]
2 But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
from you, will go out the one who will be the ruler for me in Israel.
His goings forth[c] are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.[d]
3 Therefore the Lord[e] will give them up,
until the time when the woman who is in labor bears a child.[f]
Then the remaining survivors from his brothers will return to the people of Israel.
4 He will stand and shepherd with the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
They will dwell securely, for at that time he will be great to the ends of the earth.
5 This one will be their peace.
When Assyria invades our land
and tramples on our citadels,
we will raise against him seven shepherds
and eight leaders of men.
6 They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword
and the land of Nimrod with a drawn blade.[g]
He will save us from Assyria
when it invades our land
and tramples on our territory.
The Remnant Among the Nations
7 There will be a surviving remnant of Jacob in the midst of many peoples,
like dew from the Lord,
like spring showers on the grass,
which do not wait around for a man,
and do not delay for human beings.[h]
8 The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations,
in the midst of many peoples,
like a lion among animals of the forest,
like a young lion among flocks of sheep.
As he passes through, he crushes and tears them.
There is no one who can save them from him.
9 Your hand will be high above your enemies.
All your enemies will be cut off.
God’s Judgment on His People
10 This is what will happen on that day, declares the Lord.
I will cut off your horses from your midst
and destroy your chariots.
11 I will cut off the cities of your land,
and I will destroy all your fortified cities.
12 I will cut off every form of witchcraft from your hands,
and you will have no one to read omens anymore.
13 I will cut off your carved images
and your sacred memorial stones from your midst,
and you will not worship the work of your hands anymore.
14 I will uproot your Asherah poles from your midst,
and I will destroy your cities.
15 In anger and wrath I will inflict vengeance
on the nations that have not listened to me.
God’s Case Against His People
6 Listen now to what the Lord is saying!
Get up. Plead your case to the mountains.
Let the hills hear your voice.
2 Listen, you mountains, to the accusation from the Lord.
Pay attention, you enduring foundations of the earth,
because the Lord is presenting a case against his people,
and he is indicting Israel.
3 My people, what have I done to you,
and how have I made you weary? Answer me!
4 I was the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
I redeemed you from the place where you were slaves.
I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam ahead of you.
5 My people, remember what Balak king of Moab planned,
and how Balaam son of Beor responded to him
when you were about to travel from Shittim to Gilgal,
so that you may acknowledge the Lord’s righteous acts.
Israel’s Response
6 With what am I to appear before the Lord?
How should I bow down to God on high?
Should I appear before him with burnt offerings,
with one-year-old calves?
7 Will the Lord be delighted with thousands of rams,
with tens of thousands of streams of oil?
Should I give my firstborn for my rebellion,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has told you, mankind, what is good.
What does the Lord require from you,
except to carry out justice and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God?
The Voice of the Lord Speaks Against Sin
9 The voice of the Lord cries out to the city.
To fear your name is sound judgment.
Pay attention to the rod and to the one who appointed it.
10 You wicked house, do you still have[i] treasures gained by wickedness
and dishonest measurements that are cursed?
11 Can I condone your dishonest scales and your bags full of false weights?
12 The city’s rich men are full of violence,
and its inhabitants speak falsehood.
Their tongues are treachery inside their mouths.
13 So I will wound you,[j]
striking you down
and making you desolate because of your sins.
14 You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
Your emptiness[k] will remain inside you.
You will try to store things up,
but you will not save anything.
What you save, I will give to the sword.
15 You will sow, but you will not reap.
You will press olives, but you will not anoint yourself with oil.
You will trample grapes for juice, but you will not drink the wine.
16 You have observed the statutes of Omri,[l]
and all the practices of the house of Ahab.
You have walked in their way of life,
so I will make you a hideous sight.
Your inhabitants will be subjected to contempt.[m]
You will bear the shame of my people.[n]
The Prophet’s Lament
7 I am miserable.
I have become like someone gathering summer fruit
when it is time to glean the vineyard.
There is no bunch of grapes to eat,
none of the early figs I crave.
2 The faithful[o] have been carried off from the land.
There is no one upright among mankind.
They all lie in wait for blood.
Each one hunts his brother with a net.
3 Both hands are skilled at evil.
The officials ask for bribes,
and the judges as well.
The important man says what he wants.
Together, they plot it out.
4 The best of them is like a brier bush,
the most upright like a hedge of thorns.
The day for your watchman,
the day for your punishment has come.
Now confusion[p] has come for them.
5 Do not trust a neighbor.
Do not put confidence in a close friend.
Watch what comes out of your mouth,
even when you lie down with the wife you embrace.
6 For a son will declare that his father is a fool.
A daughter will rise up against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
A man’s enemies are the members of his own household.
7 But as for me, I will keep watching for the Lord.
I will wait for God my Savior.
My God will hear me.
God’s People Will Rise Again
8 Do not rejoice over me, my enemy.
When I fall, I will rise.
When I sit in the darkness, the Lord will be a light for me.
9 Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord’s wrath,
until he pleads my case and obtains a favorable verdict for me.
He will bring me to the light.
I will see his righteousness.
10 Then my enemy will see this and will be covered with shame,
she who said to me, “Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will see her as she is being trampled like mud in the streets.
11 It will be a day to rebuild city walls.
On that day your boundary will be extended.
12 On that day people will come to you
from the lands of Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
from Egypt even to the River Euphrates,
from sea to sea and mountain to mountain.
13 The land will be laid waste because of its inhabitants,
as a result of the fruit of their deeds.
14 Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock that is your inheritance,
the flock which dwells by itself in a forest,
in the middle of fertile pastureland.
Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in days of old.
The Lord’s Response
15 As I did in the days you came out from the land of Egypt,
I will show you wonderful miracles.
The People’s Praise
16 The nations will see and be ashamed of their lack of strength.
They will place their hand over their mouth.
Their ears will be deaf.
17 They will lick up dust like a snake,
like the things that creep on the earth.
They will come from their hiding places, shaking with fear.
They will come trembling to the Lord our God,
and they will be afraid in your presence.
18 Who is a God like you, who forgives guilt,
and who passes over the rebellion of the survivors from his inheritance?
He does not hold onto his anger forever.
He delights in showing mercy.
19 He will have compassion on us again.
He will overcome our guilty deeds.
You will throw all their sins into the depths of the sea.
20 You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham,
as you swore to our fathers from days of old.
The Church on Earth
7 After this I saw four angels, who stood at the four corners of the earth. They were holding back the four winds of the earth so that the wind could not blow on the earth, the sea, or any tree.
2 And I saw another angel coming up from the east, who had the seal of the living God. He called out with a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to harm the earth and the sea. He said, 3 “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees until we have placed a seal on the foreheads of God’s servants.”
4 And I heard the number of those sealed:
144,000 sealed from all the tribes of the people of Israel:
| 5 from the tribe of Judah, | 12,000, who were sealed, |
| from the tribe of Reuben, | 12,000, |
| from the tribe of Gad, | 12,000, |
| 6 from the tribe of Asher, | 12,000, |
| from the tribe of Naphtali, | 12,000, |
| from the tribe of Manasseh, | 12,000, |
| 7 from the tribe of Simeon, | 12,000, |
| from the tribe of Levi, | 12,000, |
| from the tribe of Issachar, | 12,000, |
| 8 from the tribe of Zebulun, | 12,000, |
| from the tribe of Joseph, | 12,000, |
| from the tribe of Benjamin, | 12,000, who were sealed. |
The Church in Heaven
9 After these things I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing in front of the throne and of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and with palm branches in their hands. 10 They called out with a loud voice and said:
Salvation comes from our God, who sits on the throne, and from
the Lamb.
11 All the angels stood around the throne, the elders, and the four living creatures. They fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, 12 saying:
Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and
power and might belong to our God forever and ever. Amen.
13 One of the elders spoke to me and said, “These people dressed in white robes, who are they and where did they come from?”
And I answered him, “Sir, you know.”
14 And he said to me:
These are the ones who are coming out of the great tribulation.
They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb.
15 Because of this they are in front of the throne of God,
and they serve him day and night in his temple.
He who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.
16 They will never be hungry or thirsty ever again.
The sun will never beat upon them, nor will any scorching heat,
17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.
He will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Psalm 135
Israel, Praise the Lord
Introduction
1 Praise the Lord.[a]
Praise the name of the Lord.
Praise him, you servants of the Lord,
2 who stand in the house of the Lord,
in the courtyards of the house of our God.
3 Praise the Lord,[b] for the Lord is good.
Make music to his name, for it is pleasant.
4 Yes, the Lord chose Jacob for himself.
He chose Israel as his special treasure.
The Superiority of the Lord
5 Yes, I know that the Lord is great.
Our Lord is greater than all gods.
6 The Lord does whatever he pleases
in the heavens and on the earth,
in the seas and in all the depths.
7 He makes clouds rise from the end of the earth.
He sends lightning for the rainstorm.
He releases the wind from his storehouses.
8 He is the one who struck down
the firstborn of Egypt, both men and animals.
9 Egypt! He sent warning signs into your midst,
against Pharaoh and against all his officials.
10 He is the one who struck down many nations.
He killed mighty kings—
11 Sihon king of the Amorites,
and Og king of Bashan,
and all the kingdoms of Canaan.
12 He gave their land as a possession,
a possession to Israel, his people.
13 Lord, your name stands forever.
Lord, your reputation remains through all generations.
14 For the Lord will judge in favor of his people.
He will have pity on his servants.
15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
16 They have a mouth, but they cannot speak.
They have eyes, but they cannot see.
17 They have ears, but cannot hear.
There is not even any breath in their mouths.
18 Those who make them will be like them.
So will all who trust in them.
Conclusion
19 House of Israel, bless the Lord.
House of Aaron, bless the Lord.
20 House of Levi, bless the Lord.
You who fear the Lord, bless the Lord.
21 The Lord, who dwells in Jerusalem, will be blessed from Zion.
Praise the Lord.
5 Every word of God has been refined.
He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
6 Do not add to his words.
If you do, he will correct you,
and you will be shown to be a liar.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.