Isaiah 32; Isaiah 33; Isaiah 34; Isaiah 35; Revelation 12

Isaiah 32

1 See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice.

2 Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.

3 Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen.

4 The fearful heart will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.

5 No longer will the fool be called noble nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

6 For fools speak folly, their hearts are bent on evil: They practice ungodliness and spread error concerning the LORD; the hungry they leave empty and from the thirsty they withhold water.

7 Scoundrels use wicked methods, they make up evil schemes to destroy the poor with lies, even when the plea of the needy is just.

8 But the noble make noble plans, and by noble deeds they stand.

9 You women who are so complacent, rise up and listen to me; you daughters who feel secure, hear what I have to say!

10 In little more than a year you who feel secure will tremble; the grape harvest will fail, and the harvest of fruit will not come.

11 Tremble, you complacent women; shudder, you daughters who feel secure! Strip off your fine clothes and wrap yourselves in rags.

12 Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines

13 and for the land of my people, a land overgrown with thorns and briers— yes, mourn for all houses of merriment and for this city of revelry.

14 The fortress will be abandoned, the noisy city deserted; citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever, the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks,

15 till the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest.

16 The LORD’s justice will dwell in the desert, his righteousness live in the fertile field.

17 The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.

18 My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.

19 Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely,

20 how blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream, and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.

Isaiah 33

1 Woe to you, destroyer, you who have not been destroyed! Woe to you, betrayer, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betraying, you will be betrayed.

2 LORD, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress.

3 At the uproar of your army, the peoples flee; when you rise up, the nations scatter.

4 Your plunder, O nations, is harvested as by young locusts; like a swarm of locusts people pounce on it.

5 The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high; he will fill Zion with his justice and righteousness.

6 He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure.

7 Look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

8 The highways are deserted, no travelers are on the roads. The treaty is broken, its witnesses are despised, no one is respected.

9 The land dries up and wastes away, Lebanon is ashamed and withers; Sharon is like the Arabah, and Bashan and Carmel drop their leaves.

10 “Now will I arise,” says the LORD. “Now will I be exalted; now will I be lifted up.

11 You conceive chaff, you give birth to straw; your breath is a fire that consumes you.

12 The peoples will be burned to ashes; like cut thornbushes they will be set ablaze.”

13 You who are far away, hear what I have done; you who are near, acknowledge my power!

14 The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: “Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?”

15 Those who walk righteously and speak what is right, who reject gain from extortion and keep their hands from accepting bribes, who stop their ears against plots of murder and shut their eyes against contemplating evil—

16 they are the ones who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. Their bread will be supplied, and water will not fail them.

17 Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar.

18 In your thoughts you will ponder the former terror: “Where is that chief officer? Where is the one who took the revenue? Where is the officer in charge of the towers?”

19 You will see those arrogant people no more, people whose speech is obscure, whose language is strange and incomprehensible.

20 Look on Zion, the city of our festivals; your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful abode, a tent that will not be moved; its stakes will never be pulled up, nor any of its ropes broken.

21 There the LORD will be our Mighty One. It will be like a place of broad rivers and streams. No galley with oars will ride them, no mighty ship will sail them.

22 For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; it is he who will save us.

23 Your rigging hangs loose: The mast is not held secure, the sail is not spread. Then an abundance of spoils will be divided and even the lame will carry off plunder.

24 No one living in Zion will say, “I am ill”; and the sins of those who dwell there will be forgiven.

Isaiah 34

1 Come near, you nations, and listen; pay attention, you peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that is in it, the world, and all that comes out of it!

2 The LORD is angry with all nations; his wrath is on all their armies. He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter.

3 Their slain will be thrown out, their dead bodies will stink; the mountains will be soaked with their blood.

4 All the stars in the sky will be dissolved and the heavens rolled up like a scroll; all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shriveled figs from the fig tree.

5 My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; see, it descends in judgment on Edom, the people I have totally destroyed.

6 The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood, it is covered with fat— the blood of lambs and goats, fat from the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7 And the wild oxen will fall with them, the bull calves and the great bulls. Their land will be drenched with blood, and the dust will be soaked with fat.

8 For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of retribution, to uphold Zion’s cause.

9 Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch!

10 It will not be quenched night or day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever pass through it again.

11 The desert owl and screech owl will possess it; the great owl and the raven will nest there. God will stretch out over Edom the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation.

12 Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom, all her princes will vanish away.

13 Thorns will overrun her citadels, nettles and brambles her strongholds. She will become a haunt for jackals, a home for owls.

14 Desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and wild goats will bleat to each other; there the night creatures will also lie down and find for themselves places of rest.

15 The owl will nest there and lay eggs, she will hatch them, and care for her young under the shadow of her wings; there also the falcons will gather, each with its mate.

16 Look in the scroll of the LORD and read: None of these will be missing, not one will lack her mate. For it is his mouth that has given the order, and his Spirit will gather them together.

17 He allots their portions; his hand distributes them by measure. They will possess it forever and dwell there from generation to generation.

Isaiah 35

1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus,

2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.

3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way;

4 say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

7 The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.

9 No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there,

10 and those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Revelation 12

1 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.

4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.

5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.

8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.

9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”

13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.

15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.

16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.

17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.