Isaiah 47; Isaiah 48; Isaiah 49; 1 Thessalonians 4

1 Go down and sit in the dust, virgin Daughter Babylon! Sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter Chaldea, because they will no longer call you tender and pampered.

2 Take the millstones and grind flour! Remove your veil, strip off your robe, expose your thighs, wade through the rivers!

3 Your nakedness will be exposed, and your disgrace will be seen. I will take vengeance; no one will intervene.

4 Our redeemer has spoken; the LORD of heavenly forces is his name, the holy one of Israel.

5 Sit silent and go into darkness, Daughter Chaldea, because they will no longer call you Queen of Kingdoms.

6 I was enraged with my people; I made my inheritance impure and put them under your power. You took no pity on them. You made your yoke heavy even on the elderly.

7 You said, "I'm forever; I'm the eternal mistress." You didn't stop and think; you didn't consider the outcome.

8 So listen to this, luxuriant one who sits secure, who says in her heart, I'm utterly unique; I'll never sit as a widow; I'll never know childlessness:

9 Both of these will happen to you at once, on a single day: childlessness and widowhood will envelop you in full measure, despite your many sorceries, despite your very powerful spells.

10 You felt secure in your evil; you said, "No one sees me." Your wisdom and knowledge spun you around. You thought to yourself, I and no one else.

11 Now evil will come against you, something you won't anticipate. A curse will fall upon you, something you won't be able to dispel. Destruction will come upon you suddenly, something you won't foresee.

12 Continue with your enchantments, and with your many spells, which you have practiced since childhood. Maybe you will be able to succeed. Maybe you will inspire terror.

13 You are weary from all your consultations; let the astrologers stand up and save you, those who gaze at the stars, and predict what will happen to you at each new moon.

14 They are just like stubble; the fire burns them. They won't save themselves from the powerful flames. This is no warming ember or fire to sit beside.

15 Those with whom you have wearied yourself are like this, those with whom you were in business from your youth: each has wandered off on their own way; none will save you.

1 Listen to this, house of Jacob, who are known by the name of Israel, descendants of Judah, who swear by the LORD's name and invoke Israel's God dishonestly and unrighteously.

2 They are known as residents of the holy city, those who depend upon the God of Israel— the LORD of heavenly forces is his name.

3 Past things I announced long ago; from my mouth I proclaimed them. I acted suddenly, and they came about.

4 Because I know that you are stubborn, your neck is made of iron, and your forehead is bronze.

5 I informed you long ago; before they came about I proclaimed them to you so you wouldn't say, "My idol did them; my wood statue and metal god commanded them."

6 You've heard and seen all this— won't you admit it? From now on I'll tell you new things, guarded secrets that you don't know.

7 They are created now, not long ago; before today you hadn't heard of them, so you won't say, "I already knew them."

8 You haven't heard, nor have you known; as in ages past your ears are closed, because I knew what a traitor you were; you were known as a rebel from birth.

9 For the sake of my reputation I control my anger; for your sake I restrain my powerful radiance so as to not destroy you.

10 See, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tested you in the furnace of misery.

11 For the sake of my reputation, for my own sake, I will act, for why will my name be made impure? I won't give my glory to another.

12 Listen to me, Jacob; Israel, whom I called: I am the one; I am the first and I am the last.

13 My hand founded the earth; my strong hand spread out the heavens. When I call to them, they all stand up.

14 Gather yourselves, all of you, and listen. Who among you announced these things? "The LORD loves him. He will do what God wants with Babylon and with the descendants of Chaldea."

15 I, I have spoken and told him the things that will happen to him; I will make him succeed.

16 Come close to me; listen to this: Since the very beginning I haven't spoken in secret. Whenever anything happens, I am there. (And now the LORD God has sent me with his spirit.)

17 The LORD your redeemer, the holy one of Israel, proclaims: I am the LORD your God who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go.

18 If you would pay attention to my commands, your well-being would be like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

19 Your offspring would be like the sand, and your descendants like its grains. Their name would never be eliminated, never wiped out from before me.

20 Go out from Babylon; flee from the Chaldeans! Report this with a loud shout, proclaim it; broadcast it out to the end of the earth. Say, "The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!"

21 They weren't thirsty when he led them through the deserts. God made water flow from the rock for them; split the rock, and water flowed out.

22 There is no well-being, says the LORD, for the wicked.

1 Listen to me, coastlands; pay attention, peoples far away. The LORD called me before my birth, called my name when I was in my mother's womb.

2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword, and hid me in the shadow of God's own hand. He made me a sharpened arrow, and concealed me in God's quiver,

3 saying to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I show my glory."

4 But I said, "I have wearied myself in vain. I have used up my strength for nothing." Nevertheless, the LORD will grant me justice; my reward is with my God.

5 And now the LORD has decided— the one who formed me from the womb as his servant— to restore Jacob to God, so that Israel might return to him. Moreover, I'm honored in the LORD's eyes; my God has become my strength.

6 He said: It is not enough, since you are my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the survivors of Israel. Hence, I will also appoint you as light to the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

7 The LORD, redeemer of Israel and its holy one, says to one despised, rejected by nations, to the slave of rulers: Kings will see and stand up; commanders will bow down on account of the LORD, who is faithful, the holy one of Israel, who has chosen you.

8 The LORD said: At the right time, I answered you; on a day of salvation, I helped you. I have guarded you, and given you as a covenant to the people, to restore the land, and to reassign deserted properties,

9 saying to the prisoners, "Come out," and to those in darkness, "Show yourselves." Along the roads animals will graze; their pasture will be on every treeless hilltop.

10 They won't hunger or thirst; the burning heat and sun won't strike them, because one who has compassion for them will lead them and will guide them by springs of water.

11 I will turn all my mountains into roads; my highways will be built up.

12 Look! These will come from far away. Look! These from the north and west, and these from the southland.

13 Sing, heavens! Rejoice, earth! Break out, mountains, with a song. The LORD has comforted his people, and taken pity on those who suffer.

14 But Zion says, "The LORD has abandoned me; my Lord has forgotten me."

15 Can a woman forget her nursing child, fail to pity the child of her womb? Even these may forget, but I won't forget you.

16 Look, on my palms I've inscribed you; your walls are before me continually.

17 Your builders come quickly; those who destroy and demolish you will depart from you.

18 Look up all around and see: they are all gathered; they come to you. As surely as I live, says the LORD, you will put them all on like ornaments, bind them on like a bride.

19 As for your ruins and desolate places and destroyed land— you will soon be crowded with settlers, and those who swallowed you will be far away.

20 You will again hear the children who were born bereaved say, "The place is too crowded for me; make room for me to settle."

21 And you will think to yourself, Who bore me these? I was bereaved and desolate, exiled and sent off. So who raised these? I was left behind, I was alone; where were these?

22 The LORD God says: Look, I will raise my hand to the nations, and to the peoples I will lift up my signal. They will bring your sons in their arms, and will carry your daughters on their shoulders.

23 Kings will be your attendants, and their queens your nursemaids. With faces to the ground they will bow down to you; they will lick the dust from your feet. You will know that I am the LORD; the one who hopes in me won't be ashamed.

24 Can loot be taken from warriors? Can a tyrant's captives escape?

25 The LORD says: Even the captives of warriors will be taken, and the tyrant's loot will escape. I myself will oppose those who oppose you, and I myself will save your children.

26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; and as with wine, with their own blood they will be drunk, so that all flesh will know that I, the LORD, am your savior, and the mighty one of Jacob is your redeemer.

1 So then, brothers and sisters, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus to keep living the way you already are and even do better in how you live and please God—just as you learned from us.

2 You know the instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

3 God's will is that your lives are dedicated to him. This means that you stay away from sexual immorality

4 and learn how to control your own body in a pure and respectable way.

5 Don't be controlled by your sexual urges like the Gentiles who don't know God.

6 No one should mistreat or take advantage of their brother or sister in this issue. The Lord punishes people for all these things, as we told you before and sternly warned you.

7 God didn't call us to be immoral but to be dedicated to him.

8 Therefore, whoever rejects these instructions isn't rejecting a human authority. They are rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

9 You don't need us to write about loving your brothers and sisters because God has already taught you to love each other.

10 In fact, you are doing loving deeds for all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. Now we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do so even more.

11 Aim to live quietly, mind your own business, and earn your own living, just as I told you.

12 That way you'll behave appropriately toward outsiders, and you won't be in need.

13 Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about people who have died so that you won't mourn like others who don't have any hope.

14 Since we believe that Jesus died and rose, so we also believe that God will bring with him those who have died in Jesus.

15 What we are saying is a message from the Lord: we who are alive and still around at the Lord's coming definitely won't go ahead of those who have died.

16 This is because the Lord himself will come down from heaven with the signal of a shout by the head angel and a blast on God's trumpet. First, those who are dead in Christ will rise.

17 Then, we who are living and still around will be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet with the Lord in the air. That way we will always be with the Lord.

18 So encourage each other with these words.