One Year Bible.

Punishment Brings No Repentance

¹Hear this word,

you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,

you women who oppress the poor

and crush the needy,

who say to your husbands,

“Bring us more to drink.”

²The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness:

“Behold, the days are coming

when you will be taken away with hooks,

and your posterity with fishhooks.

³You will go out through broken walls,

each one straight ahead of her,

and you will be cast out toward Harmon,”

declares the LORD.

⁴“Go to Bethel and transgress;

rebel even more at Gilgal!

Bring your sacrifices every morning,

your tithes every three days.

⁵Offer leavened bread as a thank offering,

and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings.

For that is what you children of Israel love to do,”

declares the Lord GOD.

⁶“I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth

and all your towns with lack of bread,

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

⁷“I also withheld the rain from you

when the harvest was three months away.

I sent rain on one city

but withheld it from another.

One field received rain;

another without rain withered.

⁸People staggered from city to city

for water to drink,

but they were not satisfied;

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

⁹“I struck you with blight and mildew

in your growing gardens and vineyards;

the locust devoured your fig and olive trees,

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

¹⁰“I sent plagues among you

like those of Egypt;

I killed your young men with the sword,

along with your captured horses.

I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp,

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

¹¹“Some of you I overthrew

as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,

and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze,

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

¹²“Therefore, that is what I will do

to you, O Israel,

and since I will do this to you,

prepare to meet your God, O Israel!

¹³For behold, He who forms the mountains,

who creates the wind

and reveals His thoughts to man,

who turns the dawn to darkness

and strides on the heights of the earth—

the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”

A Lamentation against Israel

¹Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you:

²“Fallen is Virgin Israel,

never to rise again.

She lies abandoned on her land,

with no one to raise her up.”

³This is what the Lord GOD says:

“The city that marches out a thousand strong

will have but a hundred left,

and the one that marches out a hundred strong

will have but ten left in the house of Israel.”

A Call to Repentance

⁴For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel:

“Seek Me and live!

⁵Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal;

do not journey to Beersheba,

for Gilgal will surely go into exile,

and Bethel will come to nothing.

⁶Seek the LORD and live,

or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph;

it will devour everything,

with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

⁷There are those who turn justice into wormwood

and cast righteousness to the ground.

⁸He who made the Pleiades and Orion,

who turns darkness into dawn

and darkens day into night,

who summons the waters of the sea

and pours them over the face of the earth —

the LORD is His name —

⁹He flashes destruction on the strong,

so that fury comes upon the stronghold.

¹⁰There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate

and despise him who speaks with integrity.

¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor

and exact from him a tax of grain,

you will never live

in the stone houses you have built;

you will never drink the wine

from the lush vineyards you have planted.

¹²For I know that your transgressions are many

and your sins are numerous.

You oppress the righteous by taking bribes;

you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.

¹³Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times,

for the days are evil.

¹⁴Seek good, not evil,

so that you may live.

And the LORD, the God of Hosts,

will be with you, as you have claimed.

¹⁵Hate evil and love good;

establish justice in the gate.

Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts,

will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

Woe to Rebellious Israel

¹⁶Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says:

“There will be wailing in all the public squares

and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets.

The farmer will be summoned to mourn,

and the mourners to wail.

¹⁷There will be wailing in all the vineyards,

for I will pass through your midst,”

says the LORD.

¹⁸Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD!

What will the Day of the LORD be for you?

It will be darkness and not light.

¹⁹It will be like a man who flees from a lion,

only to encounter a bear,

or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall,

only to be bitten by a snake.

²⁰Will not the Day of the LORD

be darkness and not light,

even gloom with no brightness in it?

²¹“I hate, I despise your feasts!

I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

²²Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

for your peace offerings of fattened cattle

I will have no regard.

²³Take away from Me the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

²⁴But let justice roll on like a river,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

²⁵Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings

forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

²⁶You have taken along Sakkuth your king

and Kaiwan your star god,

the idols you made for yourselves.

²⁷Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”

says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.

Woe to Those at Ease in Zion

¹Woe to those at ease in Zion

and those secure on Mount Samaria,

the distinguished ones of the foremost nation,

to whom the house of Israel comes.

²Cross over to Calneh and see;

go from there to the great Hamath;

then go down to Gath of the Philistines.

Are you better than these kingdoms?

Is their territory larger than yours?

³You dismiss the day of calamity

and bring near a reign of violence.

⁴You lie on beds inlaid with ivory,

and lounge upon your couches.

You dine on lambs from the flock

and calves from the stall.

⁵You improvise songs on the harp like David

and invent your own musical instruments.

⁶You drink wine by the bowlful

and anoint yourselves with the finest oils,

but you fail to grieve

over the ruin of Joseph.

⁷Therefore, you will now go into exile

as the first of the captives,

and your feasting and lounging

will come to an end.

The Pride of Israel

⁸The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself— the LORD, the God of Hosts, has declared:

“I abhor Jacob’s pride

and detest his citadels,

so I will deliver up the city

and everything in it.”

⁹And if there are ten men left in one house, they too will die. ¹⁰And when the relative who is to burn the bodies picks them up to remove them from the house, he will call to one inside, “Is anyone else with you?”

“None,” that person will answer.

“Silence,” the relative will retort, “for the name of the LORD must not be invoked.”

¹¹For the LORD gives a command:

“The great house will be smashed to pieces,

and the small house to rubble.”

¹²“Do horses gallop on the cliffs?

Does one plow the sea with oxen?

But you have turned justice into poison

and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—

¹³you who rejoice in Lo-debar and say,

‘Did we not take Karnaim by our own strength?’

¹⁴For behold, I will raise up a nation

against you, O house of Israel,”

declares the LORD, the God of Hosts,

“and they will oppress you

from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.”

Preach the Word

¹I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom: ²Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction.

³For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. ⁴So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

⁵But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. ⁶For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. ⁷I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸From now on there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but to all who crave His appearing.

Personal Concerns

⁹Make every effort to come to me quickly, ¹⁰because Demas, in his love of this world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. ¹¹Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is useful to me in the ministry. ¹²Tychicus, however, I have sent to Ephesus. ¹³When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.

¹⁴Alexander the coppersmith did great harm to me. The Lord will repay him according to his deeds. ¹⁵You too should beware of him, for he has vigorously opposed our message.

The Lord Remains Faithful

¹⁶At my first defense, no one stood with me, but everyone deserted me. May it not be charged against them. ¹⁷But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message would be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles would hear it. So I was delivered from the mouth of the lion. ¹⁸And the Lord will rescue me from every evil action and bring me safely into His heavenly kingdom. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Final Greetings

¹⁹Greet Prisca and Aquila, as well as the household of Onesiphorus.

²⁰Erastus has remained at Corinth, and Trophimus I left sick in Miletus.

²¹Make every effort to come to me before winter.

Eubulus sends you greetings, as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers.

²²The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all.

The Woman and the Dragon

¹And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. ²She was pregnant and crying out in the pain and agony of giving birth.

³Then another sign appeared in heaven: a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven royal crowns on his heads. ⁴His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky, hurling them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, ready to devour her child as soon as she gave birth.

⁵And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was caught up to God and to His throne. ⁶And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place for her to be nourished for 1,260 days.

The War in Heaven

⁷Then a war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. ⁸But the dragon was not strong enough, and no longer was any place found in heaven for him and his angels. ⁹And the great dragon was hurled down — that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

¹⁰And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying:

“Now have come the salvation and the power

and the kingdom of our God,

and the authority of His Christ.

For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down —

he who accuses them day and night before our God.

¹¹They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony.

And they did not love their lives

so as to shy away from death.

¹²Therefore rejoice, O heavens,

and you who dwell in them!

But woe to the earth and the sea;

with great fury the devil has come down to you,

knowing he has only a short time.”

The Woman Persecuted

¹³And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. ¹⁴But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle to fly from the presence of the serpent to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.

¹⁵Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river to overtake the woman and sweep her away in the torrent. ¹⁶But the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth to swallow up the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. ¹⁷And the dragon was enraged at the woman and went to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea.