ISAIAH 33-35

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O Lord, Be Gracious to Us33:1

Ah, you destroyer,

who yourself have not been destroyed,

you traitor,

whom none has betrayed!

When you have ceased to destroy,

you will be destroyed;

and when you have finished betraying,

they will betray you.
2

O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you.

Be our arm every morning,

our salvation in the time of trouble. 3

At the tumultuous noise peoples flee;

when you lift yourself up, nations are scattered, 4

and your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathers;

as locusts leap, it is leapt upon.
5

The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;

he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness, 6

and he will be the stability of your times,

abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge;

the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure.
7

Behold, their heroes cry in the streets;

the envoys of peace weep bitterly. 8

The highways lie waste;

the traveler ceases.

Covenants are broken;

cities are despised;

there is no regard for man. 9

The land mourns and languishes;

Lebanon is confounded and withers away;

Sharon is like a desert,

and Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
10

“Now I will arise,” says the Lord,

“now I will lift myself up;

now I will be exalted. 11

You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble;

your breath is a fire that will consume you. 12

And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,

like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”
13

Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;

and you who are near, acknowledge my might. 14

The sinners in Zion are afraid;

trembling has seized the godless:

“Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?

Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?” 15

He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly,

who despises the gain of oppressions,

who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe,

who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed

and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, 16

he will dwell on the heights;

his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks;

his bread will be given him; his water will be sure.
17

Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty;

they will see a land that stretches afar. 18

Your heart will muse on the terror:

“Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed the tribute?

Where is he who counted the towers?” 19

You will see no more the insolent people,

the people of an obscure speech that you cannot comprehend,

stammering in a tongue that you cannot understand. 20

Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts!

Your eyes will see Jerusalem,

an untroubled habitation, an immovable tent,

whose stakes will never be plucked up,

nor will any of its cords be broken. 21

But there the Lord in majesty will be for us

a place of broad rivers and streams,

where no galley with oars can go,

nor majestic ship can pass. 22

For the Lord is our judge; the Lord is our lawgiver;

the Lord is our king; he will save us.
23

Your cords hang loose;

they cannot hold the mast firm in its place

or keep the sail spread out.

Then prey and spoil in abundance will be divided;

even the lame will take the prey. 24

And no inhabitant will say, “I am sick”;

the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity. Judgment on the Nations34:1

Draw near, O nations, to hear,

and give attention, O peoples!

Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;

the world, and all that comes from it. 2

For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,

and furious against all their host;

he has devoted them to destruction, has given them over for slaughter. 3

Their slain shall be cast out,

and the stench of their corpses shall rise;

the mountains shall flow with their blood. 4

All the host of heaven shall rot away,

and the skies roll up like a scroll.

All their host shall fall,

as leaves fall from the vine,

like leaves falling from the fig tree.
5

For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;

behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom,

upon the people I have devoted to destruction. 6

The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood;

it is gorged 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

Wild oxen shall fall with them,

and young steers with the mighty bulls.

Their land shall drink its fill of blood,

and their soil shall be gorged with fat.
8

For the Lord has a day of vengeance,

a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. 9

And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch,

and her soil into sulfur;

her land shall become burning pitch. 10

Night and day it shall not be quenched;

its smoke shall go up forever.

From generation to generation it shall lie waste;

none shall pass through it forever and ever. 11

But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it,

the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.

He shall stretch the line of confusion over it,

and the plumb line of emptiness. 12

Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom,

and all its princes shall be nothing.
13

Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,

nettles and thistles in its fortresses.

It shall be the haunt of jackals,

an abode for ostriches. 14

And wild animals shall meet with hyenas;

the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;

indeed, there the night bird settles

and finds for herself a resting place.
15

There the owl nests and lays

and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow;

indeed, there the hawks are gathered,

each one with her mate. 16

Seek and read from the book of the Lord:

Not one of these shall be missing;

none shall be without her mate.

For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,

and his Spirit has gathered them. 17

He has cast the lot for them;

his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;

they shall possess it forever;

from generation to generation they shall dwell in it. The Ransomed Shall Return35:1

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;

the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; 2

it shall blossom abundantly

and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,

the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They shall see the glory of the Lord,

the majesty of our God.
3

Strengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees. 4

Say to those who have an anxious heart,

“Be strong; fear not!

Behold, your God

will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you.”
5

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6

then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

For waters break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert; 7

the burning sand shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water;

in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,

the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
8

And a highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;

the unclean shall not pass over it.

It shall belong to those who walk on the way;

even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. 9

No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,

but the redeemed shall walk there. 10

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain gladness and joy,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

1 CORINTHIANS 6

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Lawsuits Against Believers  6:1 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! 4 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? 5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, 6 but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!
    9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Flee Sexual Immorality12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.