Isaiah 34; Isaiah 35; Isaiah 36; Colossians 2

Isaiah 34

1 You nations, come here and listen; you peoples, pay attention! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it, the world and all that comes from it.

2 The Lord is angry with all the nations- furious with all their armies. He will set them apart for destruction, giving them over to slaughter.

3 Their slain will be thrown out, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains flow with their blood.

4 All the heavenly bodies will dissolve. The skies will roll up like a scroll, and their stars will all wither as leaves wither on the vine, and foliage on the fig tree.

5 When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens it will then come down on Edom and on the people I have set apart for destruction.

6 The Lord's sword is covered with blood. It drips with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7 The wild oxen will be struck down with them, and young bulls with the mighty bulls. Their land will be soaked with blood, and their soil will be saturated with fat.

8 For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a time of paying back [Edom] for its hostility against Zion.

9 [Edom's] streams will be turned into pitch, her soil into sulfur; her land will become burning pitch.

10 It will never go out-day or night. Its smoke will go up forever. It will be desolate, from generation to generation; no one will pass through it forever and ever.

11 The desert owl and the hedgehog will possess it, and the great owl and the raven will dwell there. [The Lord] will stretch out a measuring line and a plumb line over her for [her] destruction and chaos.

12 No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing.

13 Her palaces will be overgrown with thorns; her fortified cities, with thistles and briers. She will become a dwelling for jackals, an abode for ostriches.

14 The wild beasts will meet hyenas, and one wild goat will call to another. Indeed, the screech owl will stay there and will find a resting place for herself.

15 The sand partridge will make her nest there; she will lay and hatch her eggs and will gather [her brood] under her shadow. Indeed, the birds of prey will gather there, each with its mate.

16 Search and read the scroll of the Lord: Not one of them will be missing, none will be lacking its mate, because He has ordered it by my mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit.

17 He has ordained a lot for them; His hand allotted their portion with a measuring line. They will possess it forever; they will dwell in it from generation to generation.

Isaiah 35

1 The wilderness and the dry land will be glad; the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.

2 It will blossom abundantly and will also rejoice with joy and singing. 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 weak hands, steady the shaking knees!

4 Say to the faint-hearted: "Be strong; do not fear! Here is your God; vengeance is coming. God's retribution is coming; He will save you."

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

6 Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy, for water will gush in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;

7 the parched ground will become a pool of water, and the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt of jackals, in their lairs, there will be grass, reeds, and papyrus.

8 A road will be there and a way; it will be called the Holy Way. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks the path. Even the fool will not go astray.

9 There will be no lion there, and no vicious beast will go up on it; they will not be found there. But the redeemed will walk [on it],

10 and the ransomed of the Lord will return and come to Zion with singing, crowned with unending joy. Joy and gladness will overtake [them], and sorrow and sighing will flee.

Isaiah 36

1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria advanced against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

2 Then the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, along with a massive army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. The Assyrian stood near the conduit of the upper pool, by the road to the Fuller's Field.

3 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the record keeper, came out to him.

4 The Rabshakeh said to them, "Tell Hezekiah: The great king, the king of Assyria, says this: 'What are you basing your confidence on?

5 I say that your plans and military preparedness are mere words. Now who are you trusting in that you have rebelled against me?

6 Look, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff, which will enter and pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. This is how Pharaoh king of Egypt is to all who trust in him.

7 Suppose you say to me: We trust in the Lord our God. Isn't He the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem: You are to worship at this altar?

8 Now make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I'll give you 2,000 horses if you can put riders on them!

9 How then can you repel [the attack of even] the weakest of my master's officers, and trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

10 Have I attacked this land to destroy it without the Lord's [approval]? The Lord said to me, 'Attack this land and destroy it.' "

11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand [it]; don't speak to us in Hebrew within earshot of the people who are on the wall."

12 But the Rabshakeh replied, "Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men who sit on the wall, [who are destined] with you to eat their excrement and drink their urine?"

13 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out loudly in Hebrew: Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

14 The king says: "Don't let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot deliver you.

15 Don't let Hezekiah persuade you to trust the Lord, saying, 'The Lord will surely deliver us. This city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.' "

16 Don't listen to Hezekiah. For the king of Assyria says: "Make peace with me and surrender to me; then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from his own cistern

17 until I come and take you away to a land like your land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

18 [Beware] that Hezekiah does not mislead you by saying, 'The Lord will deliver us.' Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

20 Who of all the gods of these lands [ever] delivered his land from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem?"

21 But they were silent and did not answer him at all, for the king's command was, "Don't answer him."

22 Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the record keeper, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they reported to him the words of the Rabshakeh.

Colossians 2

1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.

2 [I want] their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding, and have the knowledge of God's mystery-Christ.

3 In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.

4 I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments.

5 For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the strength of your faith in Christ.

6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him,

7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

8 Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ.

9 For in Him the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily,

10 and you have been filled by Him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

11 In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of the Messiah.

12 Having been buried with Him in baptism, you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

13 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him and forgave us all our trespasses.

14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.

15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; He triumphed over them by Him.

16 Therefore don't let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a sabbath day.

17 These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah.

18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.

19 He doesn't hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, develops with growth from God.

20 If you died with Christ to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations:

21 "Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch"?

22 All these [regulations] refer to what is destroyed by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines.

23 Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value against fleshly indulgence.