ARKCODEX
Isaiah
Ch. 1–2
1This book contains the messages about Judah and Jerusalem which God revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz during the time when Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings of Judah.
God Reprimands His People
2The Lord said, “Earth and sky, listen to what I am saying! The children I brought up have rebelled against me.
3Cattle know who owns them, and donkeys know where their master feeds them. But that is more than my people Israel know. They don't understand at all.”
4You are doomed, you sinful nation, you corrupt and evil people! Your sins drag you down! You have rejected the Lord, the holy God of Israel, and have turned your backs on him.
5Why do you keep on rebelling? Do you want to be punished even more? Israel, your head is already covered with wounds, and your heart and mind are sick.
6From head to foot there is not a healthy spot on your body. You are covered with bruises and sores and open wounds. Your wounds have not been cleaned or bandaged. No medicine has been put on them.
7Your country has been devastated, and your cities have been burned to the ground. While you look on, foreigners take over your land and bring everything to ruin.
8Jerusalem alone is left, a city under siege—as defenseless as a guard's hut in a vineyard or a shed in a cucumber field.
9If the Lord Almighty had not let some of the people survive, Jerusalem would have been totally destroyed, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were.
10Jerusalem, your rulers and your people are like those of Sodom and Gomorrah. Listen to what the Lord is saying to you. Pay attention to what our God is teaching you.
11He says, “Do you think I want all these sacrifices you keep offering to me? I have had more than enough of the sheep you burn as sacrifices and of the fat of your fine animals. I am tired of the blood of bulls and sheep and goats.
12Who asked you to bring me all this when you come to worship me? Who asked you to do all this tramping around in my Temple?
13It's useless to bring your offerings. I am disgusted with the smell of the incense you burn. I cannot stand your New Moon Festivals, your Sabbaths, and your religious gatherings; they are all corrupted by your sins.
14I hate your New Moon Festivals and holy days; they are a burden that I am tired of bearing.
15“When you lift your hands in prayer, I will not look at you. No matter how much you pray, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with blood.
16Wash yourselves clean. Stop all this evil that I see you doing. Yes, stop doing evil
17and learn to do right. See that justice is done—help those who are oppressed, give orphans their rights, and defend widows.”
18The Lord says, “Now, let's settle the matter. You are stained red with sin, but I will wash you as clean as snow. Although your stains are deep red, you will be as white as wool.
19If you will only obey me, you will eat the good things the land produces.
20But if you defy me, you are doomed to die. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
The Sinful City
21The city that once was faithful is behaving like a whore! At one time it was filled with righteous people, but now only murderers remain.
22Jerusalem, you were once like silver, but now you are worthless; you were like good wine, but now you are only water.
23Your leaders are rebels and friends of thieves; they are always accepting gifts and bribes. They never defend orphans in court or listen when widows present their case.
24So now, listen to what the Lord Almighty, Israel's powerful God, is saying: “I will take revenge on you, my enemies, and you will cause me no more trouble.
25I will take action against you. I will purify you the way metal is refined, and will remove all your impurity.
26I will give you rulers and advisers like those you had long ago. Then Jerusalem will be called the righteous, faithful city.”
27Because the Lord is righteous, he will save Jerusalem and everyone there who repents.
28But he will crush everyone who sins and rebels against him; he will kill everyone who forsakes him.
29You will be sorry that you ever worshiped trees and planted sacred gardens.
30You will wither like a dying oak, like a garden that no one waters.
31Just as straw is set on fire by a spark, so powerful people will be destroyed by their own evil deeds, and no one will be able to stop the destruction.
Isaiah 2
Everlasting Peace
1Here is the message which God gave to Isaiah son of Amoz about Judah and Jerusalem:
2In days to come the mountain where the Temple stands will be the highest one of all, towering above all the hills. Many nations will come streaming to it,
3and their people will say, “Let us go up the hill of the Lord, to the Temple of Israel's God. He will teach us what he wants us to do; we will walk in the paths he has chosen. For the Lord's teaching comes from Jerusalem; from Zion he speaks to his people.”
4He will settle disputes among great nations. They will hammer their swords into plows and their spears into pruning knives. Nations will never again go to war, never prepare for battle again.
5Now, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light which the Lord gives us!
Arrogance Will Be Destroyed
6O God, you have forsaken your people, the descendants of Jacob! The land is full of magic practices from the East and from Philistia. The people follow foreign customs.
7Their land is full of silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures. Their land is full of horses, and there is no end to their chariots.
8Their land is full of idols, and they worship objects that they have made with their own hands.
9Everyone will be humiliated and disgraced. Do not forgive them, Lord!
10They will hide in caves in the rocky hills or dig holes in the ground to try to escape from the Lord's anger and to hide from his power and glory!
11A day is coming when human pride will be ended and human arrogance destroyed. Then the Lord alone will be exalted.
12On that day the Lord Almighty will humble everyone who is powerful, everyone who is proud and conceited.
13He will destroy the tall cedars of Lebanon and all the oaks in the land of Bashan.
14He will level the high mountains and hills,
15every high tower, and the walls of every fortress.
16He will sink even the largest and most beautiful ships.
17-18Human pride will be ended, and human arrogance will be destroyed. Idols will completely disappear, and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.
19People will hide in caves in the rocky hills or dig holes in the ground to try to escape from the Lord's anger and to hide from his power and glory, when he comes to shake the earth.
20When that day comes, they will throw away the gold and silver idols they have made, and abandon them to the moles and the bats.
21When the Lord comes to shake the earth, people will hide in holes and caves in the rocky hills to try to escape from his anger and to hide from his power and glory.
22Put no more confidence in mortals. What are they worth?
Tobit
Ch. 1–2
1I am Tobit and this is the story of my life. My father was Tobiel, my grandfather was Ananiel, and my great-grandfather was Aduel. Aduel's father was Gabael; his grandfather was Raphael; and his great-grandfather was Raguel, who belonged to the clan of Asiel, a part of the tribe of Naphtali.
2During the time that Shalmaneser was emperor of Assyria, I was taken captive in my hometown of Thisbe, located in northern Galilee, south of Kadesh in Naphtali, northwest of Hazor, and north of Phogor.
Tobit's Early Life
3All my life I have been honest and have tried to do what was right. I often gave money to help needy relatives and other Jews who had been deported with me to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria.
4When I was young, I lived in northern Israel. All the tribes in Israel were supposed to offer sacrifices in Jerusalem. It was the one city that God had chosen from among all the Israelite cities as the place where his Temple was to be built for his holy and eternal home. But my entire tribe of Naphtali rejected the city of Jerusalem and the kings descended from David.
5Like everyone else in this tribe, my own family used to go to the city of Dan in the mountains of northern Galilee to offer sacrifices to the gold bull-calf which King Jeroboam of Israel had set up there.
Tobit's Faithfulness to His Religion
6I was the only one in my family who regularly went to Jerusalem to celebrate the religious festivals, as the Law of Moses commands everyone to do. I would hurry off to Jerusalem with the first part of my harvest, the first-born of my animals, a tenth of my cattle, and the freshly clipped wool from my sheep. Then I would stand before the altar in the Temple, and give these offerings to the priests, the descendants of Aaron.
7I would give a tenth of my grain, wine, olive oil, pomegranates, figs, and other fruits to the Levites who served God in Jerusalem. Every year, except the seventh year when the land was at rest, I would sell a second tenth of my possessions and spend the money in Jerusalem on the festival meal.
8But every third year, I would give a third tithe to widows and orphans and to foreigners living among my people, and we would eat the festival meal together. I did this in keeping with the Law of Moses, which Deborah, the mother of my grandfather Ananiel, had taught me to obey. (I had been left an orphan when my father died.)
Tobit's Faithfulness in Exile
9When I grew up, I married Anna, a member of my own tribe. We had a son and named him Tobias.
10Later, I was taken captive and deported to Assyria, and that is how I came to live in Nineveh. While we lived in Nineveh, all my relatives and the other Jews used to eat the same kind of food as the other people who lived there,
11but I refused to do so.
12Since I took seriously the commands of the Most High God,
13he made Emperor Shalmaneser respect me, and I was placed in charge of purchasing all the emperor's supplies.
14Before the emperor died, I made regular trips to the land of Media to buy things for him there. Once, when I was in the city of Rages in Media, I left some bags of money there with Gabael, Gabrias' brother, and asked him to keep them for me. There were more than 600 pounds of silver coins in those bags.
15When Shalmaneser died, his son Sennacherib succeeded him as emperor. It soon became so dangerous to travel on the roads in Media that I could no longer go there.
Tobit Buries the Dead
16While Shalmaneser was still emperor, I took good care of my own people whenever they were in need.
17If they were hungry, I shared my food with them; if they needed clothes, I gave them some of my own. Whenever I saw that the dead body of one of my people had been thrown outside the city wall, I gave it a decent burial.
18One day Sennacherib cursed God, the King of Heaven; God punished him, and Sennacherib had to retreat from Judah. On his way back to Media he was so furious that he killed many Israelites. But I secretly removed the bodies and buried them; and when Sennacherib later searched for the bodies, he could not find them.
19Then someone from Nineveh told the emperor that I was the one who had been burying his victims. As soon as I realized that the emperor knew all about me and that my life was in danger, I became frightened. So I ran away and hid.
20Everything I owned was seized and put in the royal treasury. My wife Anna and my son Tobias were all I had left.
Tobit's Nephew Rescues Him
21About six weeks later, two of Sennacherib's sons assassinated him and then escaped to the mountains of Ararat. Another son, Esarhaddon, became emperor and put Ahikar, my brother Anael's son, in charge of all the financial affairs of the empire.
22This was actually the second time Ahikar was appointed to this position, for when Sennacherib was emperor of Assyria, Ahikar had been wine steward, treasurer, and accountant, and had been in charge of the official seal. Since Ahikar was my nephew, he put in a good word for me with the emperor, and I was allowed to return to Nineveh.
Tobit 2
A Family Celebration
1When I returned home I was reunited with my wife Anna and my son Tobias. At the Harvest Festival, which is also called the Festival of Weeks, I sat down to a delicious meal.
2When I saw how much food there was on the table, I said to Tobias, Son, go out and find one of our people who is living in poverty here in exile, someone who takes God's commands seriously. Bring him back with you, so that he can share this festival meal with us. I won't start eating until you come back.
A Murder in Nineveh
3So Tobias went out to look for such a person. But he quickly returned, shouting, Father! Father! Yes, what is it? I asked. One of our people has just been murdered! Someone strangled him and threw his body into the marketplace.
4I jumped up and left the table without even touching my food. I removed the body from the street and carried it to a little shed, where I left it until sunset, when I could bury it.
5Then I returned home and washed, so as to purify myself. In deep sorrow I ate my dinner.
6I was reminded of what the prophet Amos had said to the people of Bethel, Your festivals will be turned into funerals, and your glad songs will become cries of grief.
7I began to weep. After sunset I went out, dug a grave, and buried the man.
8My neighbors thought I was crazy. Haven't you learned anything? they asked. You have already been hunted down once for burying the dead, and you would have been killed if you had not run away. But here you are doing the same thing all over again.
Tobit Is Blinded
9That night I washed, so as to purify myself, and went out into my courtyard to sleep by the wall. It was a hot night, and I did not pull the cover up over my head.
10Sparrows were on the wall right above me, but I did not know it. Their warm droppings fell into my eyes, causing a white film to form on them. I went to one doctor after another, but the more they treated me with their medicines, the worse my eyes became, until finally I was completely blind. For four years I could see nothing. My relatives were deeply concerned about my condition, and Ahikar supported me for two years before he went to the land of Elam.
A Family Quarrel
11After Ahikar left, my wife Anna had to go to work, so she took up weaving, like many other women.
12The people she worked for would pay her when she delivered the cloth. One spring day, she cut a finished piece of cloth from the loom and took it to the people who had ordered it. They paid her the full price and also gave her a goat.
13When Anna came home with the goat, it began to bleat. I called out, Where did that goat come from? You stole it, didn't you? Take it straight back to its owners. It's not right to eat stolen food!
14No! she replied. It was given to me as a gift in addition to what I got for the cloth. But I didn't believe her, and I blushed for shame for what she had done. I ordered her to return the goat to its owners, but she had the last word. Now I see what you are really like! she shouted. Where is all that concern of yours for others? What about all those good deeds you used to do?
Proverbs
Ch. 9
7If you correct conceited people, you will only be insulted. If you reprimand evil people, you will only get hurt.
8Never correct conceited people; they will hate you for it. But if you correct the wise, they will respect you.
9Anything you say to the wise will make them wiser. Whatever you tell the righteous will add to their knowledge.
10To be wise you must first have reverence for the Lord. If you know the Holy One, you have understanding.
11Wisdom will add years to your life.
12You are the one who will profit if you have wisdom, and if you reject it, you are the one who will suffer.