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Isaiah 24-26 (Listen)

Judgment on the Whole Earth

24:1 Behold, the Lord will empty the earth [1] and make it desolate,
  and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest;
  as with the slave, so with his master;
  as with the maid, so with her mistress;
as with the buyer, so with the seller;
  as with the lender, so with the borrower;
  as with the creditor, so with the debtor.
The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered;
  for the Lord has spoken this word.

The earth mourns and withers;
  the world languishes and withers;
  the highest people of the earth languish.
The earth lies defiled
  under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed the laws,
  violated the statutes,
  broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse devours the earth,
  and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched,
  and few men are left.
The wine mourns,
  the vine languishes,
  all the merry-hearted sigh.
The mirth of the tambourines is stilled,
  the noise of the jubilant has ceased,
  the mirth of the lyre is stilled.
No more do they drink wine with singing;
  strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
The wasted city is broken down;
  every house is shut up so that none can enter.
There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine;
  all joy has grown dark;
  the gladness of the earth is banished.
Desolation is left in the city;
  the gates are battered into ruins.
For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth
  among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
  as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.

They lift up their voices, they sing for joy;
  over the majesty of the Lord they shout from the west. [2]
Therefore in the east [3] give glory to the Lord;
  in the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the Lord, the God of Israel.
From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise,
  of glory to the Righteous One.
But I say, “I waste away,
  I waste away. Woe is me!
For the traitors have betrayed,
  with betrayal the traitors have betrayed.”

Terror and the pit and the snare [4]
  are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth!
He who flees at the sound of the terror
  shall fall into the pit,
and he who climbs out of the pit
  shall be caught in the snare.
For the windows of heaven are opened,
  and the foundations of the earth tremble.
The earth is utterly broken,
  the earth is split apart,
  the earth is violently shaken.
The earth staggers like a drunken man;
  it sways like a hut;
its transgression lies heavy upon it,
  and it falls, and will not rise again.

On that day the Lord will punish
  the host of heaven, in heaven,
  and the kings of the earth, on the earth.
They will be gathered together
  as prisoners in a pit;
they will be shut up in a prison,
  and after many days they will be punished.
Then the moon will be confounded
  and the sun ashamed,
for the Lord of hosts reigns
  on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and his glory will be before his elders.

God Will Swallow Up Death Forever

25:1 O Lord, you are my God;
  I will exalt you; I will praise your name,
for you have done wonderful things,
  plans formed of old, faithful and sure.
For you have made the city a heap,
  the fortified city a ruin;
the foreigners' palace is a city no more;
  it will never be rebuilt.
Therefore strong peoples will glorify you;
  cities of ruthless nations will fear you.
For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
  a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
  a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
  like heat in a dry place.
You subdue the noise of the foreigners;
  as heat by the shade of a cloud,
  so the song of the ruthless is put down.

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
  a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
  of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain
  the covering that is cast over all peoples,
  the veil that is spread over all nations.
  He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
  and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
  for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
  “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
  This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
  let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain,
  and Moab shall be trampled down in his place,
  as straw is trampled down in a dunghill. [5]
And he will spread out his hands in the midst of it
  as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim,
  but the Lord will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill [6] of his hands.
And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down,
  lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust.

You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

26:1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;
  he sets up salvation
  as walls and bulwarks.
Open the gates,
  that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
You keep him in perfect peace
  whose mind is stayed on you,
  because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
  for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
For he has humbled
  the inhabitants of the height,
  the lofty city.
He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,
  casts it to the dust.
The foot tramples it,
  the feet of the poor,
  the steps of the needy.”

The path of the righteous is level;
  you make level the way of the righteous.
In the path of your judgments,
  O Lord, we wait for you;
your name and remembrance
  are the desire of our soul.
My soul yearns for you in the night;
  my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth,
  the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
If favor is shown to the wicked,
  he does not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly
  and does not see the majesty of the Lord.
O Lord, your hand is lifted up,
  but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.
  Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
  for you have indeed done for us all our works.
O Lord our God,
  other lords besides you have ruled over us,
  but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
They are dead, they will not live;
  they are shades, they will not arise;
to that end you have visited them with destruction
  and wiped out all remembrance of them.
But you have increased the nation, O Lord,
  you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
  you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

O Lord, in distress they sought you;
  they poured out a whispered prayer
  when your discipline was upon them.
Like a pregnant woman
  who writhes and cries out in her pangs
  when she is near to giving birth,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
  we were pregnant, we writhed,
  but we have given birth to wind.
We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
  and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
  You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light,
  and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Come, my people, enter your chambers,
  and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
  until the fury has passed by.
For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place
  to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,
and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
  and will no more cover its slain.

Ephesians 4 (Listen)

Unity in the Body of Christ

4:1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”

(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? [7] He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds [8] and teachers, [9] to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, [10] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

The New Life

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, [11] which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Footnotes

[1] 24:1 Or land; also throughout this chapter
[2] 24:14 Hebrew from the sea
[3] 24:15 Hebrew in the realm of light
[4] 24:17 The Hebrew words for terror, pit, and snare sound alike
[5] 25:10 The Hebrew words for dunghill and for the Moabite town Madmen (Jeremiah 48:2) sound alike
[6] 25:11 Or in spite of the skill
[7] 4:9 Or the lower parts of the earth?
[8] 4:11 Or pastors
[9] 4:11 Or the shepherd-teachers
[10] 4:13 Greek to a full-grown man
[11] 4:22 Greek man; also verse 24