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The Commission of Isaiah
6 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. 2 Above it stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 One cried to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts;
the whole earth is full of His glory.”
4 The posts of the door moved at the voice of him who cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar in his hand. 7 And he laid it on my mouth, and said, “This has touched your lips, and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.”
8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Then I said, “Here am I. Send me.”
9 He said, “Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
10 Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and shut their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart,
and turn and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “Lord, how long?”
And He answered:
“Until the cities are laid waste
without inhabitants,
and the houses without man,
and the land is utterly desolate,
12 and the Lord has removed men far away,
and there is a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
13 But yet in it shall be a tenth,
and it shall return, and shall be burned,
as a terebinth tree or as an oak,
whose stump remains when it is cut down,
so the holy seed is its stump.”
Isaiah Reassures King Ahaz
7 And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Aram, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it.
2 It was said to the house of David, “Aram is allied with Ephraim.” Then his heart trembled and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood tremble with the wind.
3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah: Go out now to meet Ahaz, you, and Shear-Jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field, 4 and say to him, Take heed, and be quiet. Do not fear nor be fainthearted because of the two tails of these smoking firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin with Aram and of the son of Remaliah, 5 because Aram, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have taken evil counsel against you, saying, 6 Let us go up against Judah, and trouble it, and let us make a breach there for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeel. 7 Thus says the Lord God:
It shall not stand,
nor shall it come to pass.
8 For the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin.
Now within sixty-five years
Ephraim shall be broken so that it is not a people.
9 The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If you will not believe,
surely you shall not be established.
The Sign of Immanuel
10 Moreover the Lord spoke again to Ahaz, saying: 11 Ask for a sign from the Lord your God. Make it either as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.
12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I tempt the Lord.
13 Then he said, “Hear now, O house of David. Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: The virgin[a] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.[b] 15 Curds and honey he shall eat at the time that he knows enough to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that you dread shall be forsaken of both her kings. 17 The Lord shall bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon your father’s house, days that have not come from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria.”
18 In that day the Lord shall whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 19 They shall come, and all of them shall rest in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and on all thorns, and on all bushes. 20 In that same day the Lord shall shave with a hired razor, from regions beyond the River,[c] with the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the legs, and it shall also remove the beard. 21 In that day a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep, 22 and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he shall eat curds; for everyone who is left in the land shall eat curds and honey. 23 In that day every place where there were a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels[d] of silver, shall become briers and thorns. 24 With arrows and with bows shall men come there because all the land shall become briers and thorns. 25 On all hills that used to be cultivated with the hoe, you will not go there for fear of briers and thorns. But it shall be for pasturing oxen and for sheep to tread.
Paul’s Sufferings as an Apostle
16 I say again, let no one think that I am a fool. Otherwise, at least receive me as a fool, so that I also may boast a little. 17 What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting. 18 Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast. 19 For you tolerate fools gladly, seeing you yourselves are wise. 20 For you permit it if a man brings you into bondage, if a man devours you, if a man takes from you, if a man exalts himself, or if a man strikes you on the face. 21 I say to my reproach that we were too weak for that.
But whenever anyone is bold (I speak foolishly), I am bold also. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. 24 Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I suffered shipwreck; a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brothers; 27 in weariness and painfulness, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness. 28 Beside the external things, the care of all the churches pressures me daily. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led into sin, and I am not distressed?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things which concern my weakness. 31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forevermore, knows that I am not lying. 32 In Damascus the governor under King Aretas secured the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me. 33 But I was let down by the wall through a window in a basket and escaped his hands.
Psalm 54
For the Music Director. With stringed instruments. A Contemplative Maskil of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, “Is David not hiding among us?”
1 O God, save me by Your name,
and judge me by Your strength.
2 O God, hear my prayer;
give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For strangers rise up against me,
and formidable adversaries seek my life;
they do not set God before them. Selah
4 God is my helper;
the Lord is with those who support my life.
5 He will repay my enemies for their evil.
In Your faithfulness, destroy them.
6 I will sacrifice a freewill offering to You;
I will give thanks to Your name, O Lord, for it is good.
7 For He has delivered me out of all trouble;
and my eye has looked down on my enemies.
Saying Seven
23 When you sit to eat with a ruler,
consider diligently what is before you;
2 and put a knife to your throat,
if you are a man given to appetite.
3 Be not desirous of his delicacies,
for they are deceptive food.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.