Old/New Testament
11 But on this humbled ground, a tiny shoot, hopeful and promising,
will sprout from Jesse’s stump;
A branch will emerge from his roots to bear fruit.
2 And on this child from David’s line, the Spirit of the Eternal One will alight and rest.
By the Spirit of wisdom and discernment
He will shine like the dew.
By the Spirit of counsel and strength
He will judge fairly and act courageously.
By the Spirit of knowledge and reverence of the Eternal One,
3 He will take pleasure in honoring the Eternal.
He will determine fairness and equity;
He will consider more than what meets the eye,
And weigh in more than what he’s told.
4 So that even those who can’t afford a good defense
will nevertheless get a fair and equitable judgment.
With just a word, He will end wickedness and abolish oppression.
With nothing more than the breath of His mouth, He will destroy evil.
5 He will clothe himself with righteousness and truth;
the impulse to right wrongs will be in his blood.
With unwavering steps and integrity uncompromised, He will establish peace.
6 A day will come when the wolf will live peacefully beside the wobbly-kneed lamb,
and the leopard will lie down with the young goat;
The calf and yearling, newborn and slow, will rest secure with the lion;
and a little child will tend them all.
7 Bears will graze with the cows they used to attack;
even their young will rest together,
and the lion will eat hay, like gentle oxen.
8-9 Neither will a baby who plays next to a cobra’s hole
nor a toddler who sticks his hand into a nest of vipers suffer harm.
All my holy mountain will be free of anything hurtful or destructive,
for as the waters fill the sea,
The entire earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Eternal.
10 Then on that day, that root from Jesse’s line
will stand as a signal for the peoples of the world
Who will come to Him seeking guidance and direction;
and glory will be restored to the land where He resides.[a]
11 At that time, my Lord will reach out and gather in the remnant of His scattered people a second time. God’s people, those who had been defeated and exiled, will make their way back from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the islands of the sea.
12 When God raises a signal, the whole world will hear the news
of how He is assembling the people He had banished,
Gathering those scattered from Judah from across the whole wide earth.
There are no capricious acts with God. God, and no one else, is the undoing of Israel. He may use Assyria as His agent to chastise the people of Judah for their wrongdoing, but judgment is never God’s last move. When God judges—when God punishes—He does so for a reason. His judgment is always measured, finite, and based on His covenant loyalty. God takes no delight in His people’s suffering; but sometimes, tragically, it is necessary. Willful ignorance and blatant disregard for God and others cannot be ignored. In the end, God’s purpose is to repair a world deeply injured by sin and its consequences. So His next move is to rescue and restore His covenant partners. Reconciliation and grace always follow destruction.
13 At that time Ephraim will no longer envy Judah,
those who afflict Judah will be brought down,
For those groups who had been at odds with each other—
envy and hostility will end.
14 But they will join forces against those who threaten them,
swooping down on the slopes of Philistia in the west,
Plundering and prevailing over the nations in the east who oppressed them:
Edom, Moab, and Ammon.
15 And the Eternal will make it easy,
so easy for God’s people to return from Egypt and Assyria.
He will create a swath of dry land through the gulf of Egypt’s sea;
with a wave of His hand, He will blow a scorching wind
Over the Euphrates—breaking it up into seven streams—
so the people can cross it in their sandals.
16 He will build a highway for the remnant of His people as they leave Assyria behind,
just as He did for the Israelites when they left the land of Egypt.[b]
12 In the face of such grace that day, you will thank God.
People: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Eternal One,
God of our people, of our promise
For establishing an end to our punishment,
for taking me back with kindness, and comforting me.
2 See, God has come to rescue me;
I will trust in Him and not be afraid,
For the Eternal, indeed, the Eternal is my strength and my song.
My very own God has rescued me.
God has given His people a new surety and confidence, a new sense of purpose, strength, and determination.
3 With joy in each step, you will drink deeply from the springs of salvation.
4 You’ll want to sing out that day,
People: Give thanks to the Eternal; call on His name.
Spread the news throughout the world of what He has done
and how great is His name!
5 Sing praises to the Eternal!
Everyone, everywhere should know that God acts in amazing ways.
6 You who live in this God-blessed place, this Zion, shout out and sing for joy!
For God is great, and God is here—with us and around us—the Holy One of Israel.
13 The burden of Babylon (Isaiah, Amoz’s son, saw this message):
Isaiah, like many prophets, bears a burden: speaking as God’s mouthpiece in the world. But the burden he bears is nothing compared to the punishing burden Babylon will face for the violence it inflicts on the small nations it is annexing. Isaiah “sees” this message; no one knows how. Was it a vision? Was it a dream? Was it an insight gleaned from some ordinary moment in his extraordinary life?
2 Eternal One: Raise a signal on a bare mountaintop;
flash the message; broadcast it widely.
Shout out to the nations to assemble an army;
wave them on and welcome them at the gates of the nobles.
3 I have enlisted them to be the ones to execute My fierce anger.
They are mine—I have commanded and consecrated them—these high and mighty ones.
4 Listen! There is restlessness and rumbling on the mountains,
as a powerful company assembles.
Listen! There is an uproar among the nations
as they gather their might together.
The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,
is mustering an army—thousands, maybe millions—for war.
5 They come from lands far away,
beyond distant horizons.
That’s where the Eternal calls up His weapons of wrath—
in order to destroy the whole land!
6 Cry out in terror!—the time is coming;
the day of the Eternal is nearly here,
Violence and destruction as only God-All-Powerful can wreak.
7-8 This is why all hands will shake and tremble;
every heart will flutter and melt.
People will be paralyzed with fear, weakened with terror.
Taut and shaking, they’ll be overcome like a woman in labor.
They’ll look to each other dumbfounded,
their faces flushed with fear.
9 See here! The fury of God has been building and is too great to stop;
the day of the Eternal is nearly here.
It will come down in all its cruelty, fury, and fiery anger,
to make the land a wasteland, to wipe out all who failed God.
So complete, so persistent are the nation’s sins that even the lights of heaven go out.
10 For the stars that define the constellations in the heavens
will fail to give their light.
The sun will go dark even when it’s high in the sky;
the moon will not shine.[c]
11 Eternal One: I will turn the world’s wrongdoings back on itself.
I will punish those who act wickedly.
I will stop the arrogant musings of the proud and pompous,
and make them puny and weak.
12 People will be a rarity in the land,
like great chunks of gold from Ophir.
13 Like nothing you’ve ever dreamed,
the heavens will tremble and the earth itself will rock out of place,
When the fury of the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, is unleashed
and the power of God’s anger is loosed.
14 Then, in their confusion and distress,
like a hunted gazelle or a neglected stray sheep,
They will turn to their own people and run for whatever seems safe;
they’ll try to escape to their own land.
15 The terror rages on. Anyone who’s found will be run through with a sword.
Those who are caught will die by its cruel edge.
16 Their babies will be dashed to pieces on the rocks as they look on in horror;
their houses will be ransacked, and their wives will be raped.
17 See, I’m rousing up the Medes against them; they are a people
who kill indiscriminately and can’t be bribed off with silver or gold.
18 The young warriors will fall before their arrows;
not even infants or toddlers will receive mercy at their hands.
19 But afterward, the awesome and mighty city Babylon, pride of the Chaldeans,
will be razed to the ground like Sodom and Gomorrah, which God destroyed.
20 It’ll never be inhabited again, and future generations will never call it home;
there Arab nomads won’t pitch their tents; shepherds won’t rest their flocks.
21 Only desert animals will occupy the deserted city;
owls will nest in their formerly swept-clean houses.
Mangy jackals and wild goats will roam among the rubble
and romp among the ruins.
22 Hyenas will prowl around and howl among its towers;
jackals will haunt its formerly palatial palaces;
Babylon’s time of destruction is coming; her days are numbered.
4 As a prisoner of the Lord, I urge you: Live a life that is worthy of the calling He has graciously extended to you. 2 Be humble. Be gentle. Be patient. Tolerate one another in an atmosphere thick with love. 3 Make every effort to preserve the unity the Spirit has already created, with peace binding you together.
Now that Paul has described the new world as God would have it, he urges believers to live out their callings with humility, patience, and love: to walk as Jesus walked. These are the ways of Jesus. Paul encourages them to do whatever it takes to hold onto the unity that binds people together in peace. He does not ask them to create that unity; this has already been accomplished through the work of the Rescuer and His Spirit. Rather, he calls believers to guard that unity—a more modest but no less significant task—because that unity is founded on God’s oneness and work in the world.
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were all called to pursue one hope. 5 There is one Lord Jesus, one living faith, one ceremonial washing through baptism,[a] and 6 one God—the Father over all who is above all, through all, and in all. 7 This God has given to each of us grace in full measure according to the Anointed’s gift 8 as the Scripture says,
When He ascended to the heights,
He put captivity in chains;
And in His triumph, He gave gifts to the people.[b]
9 (Well, when it says “He ascended,” then that must mean that He had descended earlier to the lower levels, that is, to the earth. 10 The One who descended is the same One who rose from the dead to ascend far above all the heavens so that He could fill all things.)
11 It was the risen One who handed down to us such gifted leaders—some emissaries,[c] some prophets, some evangelists, as well as some pastor-teachers— 12 so that God’s people would be thoroughly equipped to minister and build up the body of the Anointed One. 13 These ministries will continue until we are unified in faith and filled with the knowledge of the Son of God, until we stand mature in His teachings and fully formed in the likeness of the Anointed, our Liberating King. 14 Then we will no longer be like children, tossed around here and there upon ocean waves, picked up by every gust of religious teaching spoken by liars or swindlers or deceivers. 15 Instead, by truth spoken in love, we are to grow in every way into Him—the Anointed One, the head. 16 He joins and holds together the whole body with its ligaments providing the support needed so each part works to its proper design to form a healthy, growing, and mature body that builds itself up in love.
17 Therefore, as a witness of the Lord, I insist on this: that you no longer walk in the outsiders’ ways—with minds devoted to worthless pursuits. 18 They are blind to true understanding. They are strangers and aliens to the kind of life God has for them because they live in ignorance and immorality and because their hearts are cold, hard stones. 19 And now, since they’ve lost all natural feelings, they have given themselves over to sensual, greedy, and reckless living. They stop at nothing to satisfy their impure appetites.
20 But this is not the path of the Anointed One, which you have learned. 21 If you have heard Jesus and have been taught by Him according to the truth that is in Him, 22 then you know to take off your former way of life, your crumpled old self—that dark blot of a soul corrupted by deceitful desire and lust— 23 to take a fresh breath and to let God renew your attitude and spirit. 24 Then you are ready to put on your new self, modeled after the very likeness of God: truthful, righteous, and holy.
25 So put away your lies and speak the truth to one another because we are all part of one another. 26 When you are angry, don’t let it carry you into sin.[d] Don’t let the sun set with anger in your heart or 27 give the devil room to work. 28 If you have been stealing, stop. Thieves must go to work like everyone else and work honestly with their hands so that they can share with anyone who has a need. 29 Don’t let even one rotten word seep out of your mouths. Instead, offer only fresh words that build others up when they need it most. That way your good words will communicate grace to those who hear them. 30 It’s time to stop bringing grief to God’s Holy Spirit; you have been sealed with the Spirit, marked as His own for the day of rescue. 31 Banish bitterness, rage and anger, shouting and slander, and any and all malicious thoughts—these are poison. 32 Instead, be kind and compassionate. Graciously forgive one another just as God has forgiven you through the Anointed, our Liberating King.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.