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4Seven women shall take hold of one man on that day, saying,
‘We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes;
just let us be called by your name;
   take away our disgrace.’

The Future Glory of the Survivors in Zion

2 On that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel. ³Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, ⁴once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgement and by a spirit of burning. ⁵Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Indeed, over all the glory there will be a canopy. ⁶It will serve as a pavilion, a shade by day from the heat, and a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.

The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

5Let me sing for my beloved
   my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
   on a very fertile hill.
² He dug it and cleared it of stones,
   and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watch-tower in the midst of it,
   and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
   but it yielded wild grapes.

³ And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
   and people of Judah,
judge between me
   and my vineyard.
⁴ What more was there to do for my vineyard
   that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
   why did it yield wild grapes?

⁵ And now I will tell you
   what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
   and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
   and it shall be trampled down.
⁶ I will make it a waste;
   it shall not be pruned or hoed,
   and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
   that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
   is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
   are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
   but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
   but heard a cry!

Social Injustice Denounced

⁸ Ah, you who join house to house,
   who add field to field,
until there is room for no one but you,
   and you are left to live alone
   in the midst of the land!
⁹ The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:
Surely many houses shall be desolate,
   large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.
¹⁰ For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,
   and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.^*

¹¹ Ah, you who rise early in the morning
   in pursuit of strong drink,
who linger in the evening
   to be inflamed by wine,
¹² whose feasts consist of lyre and harp,
   tambourine and flute and wine,
but who do not regard the deeds of the Lord,
   or see the work of his hands!
¹³ Therefore my people go into exile without knowledge;
their nobles are dying of hunger,
   and their multitude is parched with thirst.

¹⁴ Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite
   and opened its mouth beyond measure;
the nobility of Jerusalem^* and her multitude go down,
   her throng and all who exult in her.
¹⁵ People are bowed down, everyone is brought low,
   and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.
¹⁶ But the Lord of hosts is exalted by justice,
   and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.
¹⁷ Then the lambs shall graze as in their pasture,
   fatlings and kids^* shall feed among the ruins.

¹⁸ Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood,
   who drag sin along as with cart-ropes,
¹⁹ who say, ‘Let him make haste,
   let him speed his work
   that we may see it;
let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfilment,
   that we may know it!’
²⁰ Ah, you who call evil good
   and good evil,
who put darkness for light
   and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
   and sweet for bitter!
²¹ Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,
   and shrewd in your own sight!
²² Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine
   and valiant at mixing drink,
²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
   and deprive the innocent of their rights!

Foreign Invasion Predicted

²⁴ Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,
   and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,
so their root will become rotten,
   and their blossom go up like dust;
for they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts,
   and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵ Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people,
   and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them;
   the mountains quaked,
and their corpses were like refuse
   in the streets.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
   and his hand is stretched out still.

²⁶ He will raise a signal for a nation far away,
   and whistle for a people at the ends of the earth;
Here they come, swiftly, speedily!
²⁷ None of them is weary, none stumbles,
   none slumbers or sleeps,
not a loincloth is loose,
   not a sandal-thong broken;
²⁸ their arrows are sharp,
   all their bows bent,
their horses’ hoofs seem like flint,
   and their wheels like the whirlwind.
²⁹ Their roaring is like a lion,
   like young lions they roar;
they growl and seize their prey,
   they carry it off, and no one can rescue.
³⁰ They will roar over it on that day,
   like the roaring of the sea.
And if one looks to the land—
   only darkness and distress;
and the light grows dark with clouds.

A Vision of God in the Temple

6In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. ²Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. ³And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
⁴The pivots^* on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. ⁵And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. ⁷The seraph^* touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ ⁸Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ ⁹And he said, ‘Go and say to this people:
“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;
keep looking, but do not understand.”
¹⁰ Make the mind of this people dull,
   and stop their ears,
   and shut their eyes,
so that they may not look with their eyes,
   and listen with their ears,
and comprehend with their minds,
   and turn and be healed.’
¹¹ Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ And he said:
‘Until cities lie waste
   without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
   and the land is utterly desolate;
¹² until the Lord sends everyone far away,
   and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.
¹³ Even if a tenth part remains in it,
   it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak
   whose stump remains standing
   when it is felled.’^*
The holy seed is its stump.

Psalm 27

Triumphant Song of Confidence

Of David.
¹ The Lord is my light and my salvation;
   whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold^* of my life;
   of whom shall I be afraid?

² When evildoers assail me
   to devour my flesh—
my adversaries and foes—
   they shall stumble and fall.

³ Though an army encamp against me,
   my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
   yet I will be confident.

⁴ One thing I asked of the Lord,
   that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord
   all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
   and to inquire in his temple.

⁵ For he will hide me in his shelter
   in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
   he will set me high on a rock.

⁶ Now my head is lifted up
   above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
   sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

⁷ Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
   be gracious to me and answer me!
⁸ ‘Come,’ my heart says, ‘seek his face!’
   Your face, Lord, do I seek.
⁹   Do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger,
   you who have been my help.
Do not cast me off, do not forsake me,
   O God of my salvation!
¹⁰ If my father and mother forsake me,
   the Lord will take me up.

¹¹ Teach me your way, O Lord,
   and lead me on a level path
   because of my enemies.
¹² Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
   for false witnesses have risen against me,
   and they are breathing out violence.

¹³ I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
   in the land of the living.
¹⁴ Wait for the Lord;
   be strong, and let your heart take courage;
   wait for the Lord!

A Life Pleasing to God

4Finally, brothers and sisters,^* we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more. ²For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; ⁴that each one of you knows how to control your own body^* in holiness and honour, ⁵not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶that no one wrongs or exploits a brother or sister^* in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. ⁷For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. ⁸Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.

9 Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters,^* you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; ¹⁰and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters^* throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved,^* to do so more and more, ¹¹to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, ¹²so that you may behave properly towards outsiders and be dependent on no one.

The Coming of the Lord

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,^* about those who have died,^* so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.^{* 15}For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.^{* 16}For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever. ¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.