You will show loyalty to Jacob
and faithful love to Abraham,
as You swore to our fathers
from days long ago.

One has gone out from you,
who plots evil against Yahweh,
and is a wicked counselor.

For I will now break off his yoke from you
and tear off your shackles.

The Lord has issued an order concerning you:

There will be no offspring
to carry on your name.
I will eliminate the carved idol and cast image
from the house of your gods;
I will prepare your grave,
for you are contemptible.

Nineveh has been like a pool of water
from her first days,
but they are fleeing.
“Stop! Stop!” they cry,
but no one turns back.

Beware, I am against you.
This is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts.
I will make your chariots go up in smoke
and the sword will devour your young lions.
I will cut off your prey from the earth,
and the sound of your messengers
will never be heard again.

Then all who see you will recoil from you, saying,
“Nineveh is devastated;
who will show sympathy to her?”
Where can I find anyone to comfort you?

You also will become drunk;
you will hide yourself.
You also will seek refuge from the enemy.

They are fierce and terrifying;
their views of justice and sovereignty
stem from themselves.

Their horses are swifter than leopards
and more fierce than wolves of the night.
Their horsemen charge ahead;
their horsemen come from distant lands.
They fly like an eagle, swooping to devour.

Are You not from eternity, Yahweh my God?
My Holy One, You will not die.
Lord, You appointed them to execute judgment;
my Rock, You destined them to punish us.

Woe to him who dishonestly makes
wealth for his house
to place his nest on high,
to escape from the reach of disaster!

For the stones will cry out from the wall,
and the rafters will answer them
from the woodwork.

Is it not from the Lord of Hosts
that the peoples labor only to fuel the fire
and countries exhaust themselves for nothing?

God comes from Teman,
the Holy One from Mount Paran.Selah
His splendor covers the heavens,
and the earth is full of His praise.

His brilliance is like light;
rays are flashing from His hand.
This is where His power is hidden.

You took the sheath from Your bow;
the arrows are ready to be used with an oath.Selah
You split the earth with rivers.

You come out to save Your people,
to save Your anointed.
You crush the leader of the house of the wicked
and strip him from foot to neck.Selah

I will completely sweep away everything
from the face of the earth—
this is the Lord’s declaration.

I will sweep away man and animal;
I will sweep away the birds of the sky
and the fish of the sea,
and the ruins along with the wicked.
I will cut off mankind
from the face of the earth.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I will stretch out My hand against Judah
and against all the residents of Jerusalem.
I will cut off every vestige of Baal
from this place,
the names of the pagan priests
along with the priests;

and those who turn back from following the Lord,
who do not seek the Lord or inquire of Him.

On that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
there will be an outcry from the Fish Gate,
a wailing from the Second District,
and a loud crashing from the hills.

Herds will lie down in the middle of it,
every kind of wild animal.
Both the desert owl and the screech owl
will roost in the capitals of its pillars.
Their calls will sound from the window,
but devastation will be on the threshold,
for He will expose the cedar work.

From beyond the rivers of Cush
My supplicants, My dispersed people,
will bring an offering to Me.

On that day you will not be put to shame
because of everything you have done
in rebelling against Me.
For then I will remove
your proud, arrogant people from among you,
and you will never again be haughty
on My holy mountain.

I will gather those who have been driven
from the appointed festivals;
they will be a tribute from you
and a reproach on her.

“Now, reflect back from this day: Before one stone was placed on another in the Lord’s temple,

what state were you in? When someone came to a grain heap of 20 measures, it only amounted to 10; when one came to the winepress to dip 50 measures from the vat, it only amounted to 20.

“Consider carefully from this day forward; from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid; consider it carefully.

Is there still seed left in the granary? The vine, the fig, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yet produced. But from this day on I will bless you.”

Do not be like your ancestors; the earlier prophets proclaimed to them: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: Turn from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they did not listen or pay attention to Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

Then the Angel of the Lord responded, “How long, Lord of Hosts, will You withhold mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that You have been angry with these 70 years?”

Let all people be silent before the Lord, for He is coming from His holy dwelling.”

The Lord said to Satan: “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! May the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Isn’t this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”

So the Angel of the Lord spoke to those standing before Him, “Take off his filthy clothes!” Then He said to him, “See, I have removed your guilt from you, and I will clothe you with splendid robes.”

And I questioned him further, “What are the two olive branches beside the two gold conduits, from which golden oil pours out?”

Then I looked up again and saw four chariots coming from between two mountains. And the mountains were made of bronze.

“Take an offering from the exiles, from Heldai, Tobijah, and Jedaiah, who have arrived from Babylon, and go that same day to the house of Josiah son of Zephaniah.

You are to tell him: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: Here is a man whose name is Branch; He will branch out from His place and build the Lord’s temple.

They made their hearts like a rock so as not to obey the law or the words that the Lord of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of Hosts.

The Lord of Hosts says this: “I will save My people from the land of the east and the land of the west.

For prior to those days neither man nor beast had wages. There was no safety from the enemy for anyone who came or went, for I turned everyone against his neighbor.

The Lord of Hosts says this: “In those days, 10 men from nations of every language will grab the robe of a Jewish man tightly, urging: Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.”

I will remove the blood from their mouths
and the detestable things
from between their teeth.
Then they too will become a remnant for our God;
they will become like a clan in Judah
and Ekron like the Jebusites.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the horse from Jerusalem.
The bow of war will be removed,
and He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His dominion will extend from sea to sea,
from the Euphrates River
to the ends of the earth.

As for you,
because of the blood of your covenant,
I will release your prisoners
from the waterless cistern.

The cornerstone will come from Judah.
The tent peg will come from them
and also the battle bow and every ruler.
Together

I will bring them back from the land of Egypt
and gather them from Assyria.
I will bring them to the land of Gilead
and to Lebanon,
but it will not be enough for them.

Indeed, I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, I will turn everyone over to his neighbor and his king. They will devastate the land, and I will not deliver it from them.”

On that day”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts—“I will erase the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.

I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle. The city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be removed from the city.

On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. The Mount of Olives will be split in half from east to west, forming a huge valley, so that half the mountain will move to the north and half to the south.

You will flee by My mountain valley, for the valley of the mountains will extend to Azal. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with Him.

On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea, in summer and winter alike.

All the land from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem will be changed into a plain. But Jerusalem will be raised up and will remain on its site from the Benjamin Gate to the place of the First Gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses.

On that day a great panic from the Lord will be among them, so that each will seize the hand of another, and the hand of one will rise against the other.

Then all the survivors from the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to celebrate the Festival of Booths.

“And now ask for God’s favor. Will He be gracious to us? Since this has come from your hands, will He show any of you favor?” asks the Lord of Hosts.

“I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, so you would no longer kindle a useless fire on My altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Hosts, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.

“For My name will be great among the nations, from the rising of the sun to its setting. Incense and pure offerings will be presented in My name in every place because My name will be great among the nations,” says Yahweh of Hosts.

You also say: “Look, what a nuisance!” “And you scorn it,” says the Lord of Hosts. “You bring stolen, lame, or sick animals. You bring this as an offering! Am I to accept that from your hands?” asks the Lord.

“Look, I am going to rebuke your descendants, and I will spread animal waste over your faces, the waste from your festival sacrifices, and you will be taken away with it.

True instruction was in his mouth, and nothing wrong was found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and fairness and turned many from sin.

For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.

“You, on the other hand, have turned from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have violated the covenant of Levi,” says the Lord of Hosts.

To the man who does this, may the Lord cut off any descendants from the tents of Jacob, even if they present an offering to the Lord of Hosts.

And this is another thing you do: you cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning, because He no longer respects your offerings or receives them gladly from your hands.

“Since the days of your fathers, you have turned from My statutes; you have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Hosts.

But you ask: “How can we return?”

But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and playfully jump like calves from the stall.

So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations; and from David until the exile to Babylon, 14 generations; and from the exile to Babylon until the Messiah, 14 generations.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”

When Joseph got up from sleeping, he did as the Lord’s angel had commanded him. He married her

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived unexpectedly in Jerusalem,

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the male children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.

Then people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the vicinity of the Jordan were flocking to him,

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to the place of his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones!

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.

After Jesus was baptized, He went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on Him.

And there came a voice from heaven:

This is My beloved Son.
I take delight in Him!

But He answered, “It is written:

Man must not live on bread alone
but on every word that comes
from the mouth of God.”

From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!”

Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and He called them.

Then the news about Him spread throughout Syria. So they brought to Him all those who were afflicted, those suffering from various diseases and intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, and the paralytics. And He healed them.

Large crowds followed Him from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

For I assure you: Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished.

But let your word ‘yes’ be ‘yes,’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’ Anything more than this is from the evil one.

Give to the one who asks you, and don’t turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of people, to be seen by them. Otherwise, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
[For Yours is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen.]

You’ll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes or figs from thistles?

Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!’

When He came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him.

I tell you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

Now a long way off from them, a large herd of pigs was feeding.

As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” So he got up and followed Him.

Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests be sad while the groom is with them? The time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

No one patches an old garment with unshrunk cloth, because the patch pulls away from the garment and makes the tear worse.

Just then, a woman who had suffered from bleeding for 12 years approached from behind and touched the tassel on His robe,