But now Yahweh has said this, your creator, Ya’aqob, your former, Yisra’el: ‘Don’t be afraid, because I’m restoring you; I call you by name, you’re mine. When you pass through water, I’ll be with you, and through rivers, they won’t overwhelm you. When you go in the middle of fire you won’t burn, and into flames, they won’t consume you. Because I am Yahweh your God, Yisra’el’s sacred one, your deliverer. I gave Misrayim as your ransom, Kush and Seba in place of you. Because you were valuable in my eyes; you were honoured and I myself was loyal to you, So that I would give people in place of you, nations in place of your life. Don’t be afraid, because I’ll be with you. From the east I shall bring your offspring, from the west I shall gather you. I shall say to the north, “Give”, and to the south, “Don’t restrain. Bring my sons from far away, my daughters from the end of the earth, Everyone called in my name and for my splendour, whom I created, formed, yes made.”’
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union, where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
Listen, you deaf people; you blind people, look and see!
Who is blind except my servant, as deaf as my envoy I send? Who is as blind as the one made good to, as blind as Yahweh’s servant?
While seeing many things, you don’t heed; while opening ears, he doesn’t listen.
Yahweh wants, for the sake of his faithfulness, that he should magnify the instruction, glorify it. But that is a people plundered and spoiled, trapped in holes, all of them, and they’re confined in jails. They’ve become plunder with no rescuer, spoil with no one saying, ‘Give it back!’
Who among you will give ear to this, will heed and listen for the future? Who gave Ya’aqob as spoil, Yisra’el to plunderers? – it was Yahweh, against whom we had done wrong, wasn’t it? They were not willing to walk in his ways, they didn’t listen to his instruction. So he poured wrath upon it, his anger and battling vigour. It blazed upon it all round, but it didn’t acknowledge; it burned it up, but it doesn’t take it into its mind.
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
O Lord Jesus Christ, stay beside me to defend me, within me to guide me, before me to lead me, and above me to bless me, that with you and in you, I may live, and move and have my being, for ever and ever. Amen.
Sing Yahweh a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, You who go down to the sea, and what fills it, foreign shores and those who live in the m. The wilderness and its towns are to raise their voice, the villages where Qedar lives. The people who live in Sela are to resound, they are to yell from the top of the mountains.
Yahweh goes out like a strong man, like a man of battle he arouses his passion. He shouts, yes roars, acts as a strong man against his enemies. ‘I’ve been quiet from of old; I’ve been being still and restraining myself. Like a woman giving birth I shall shriek, I shall devastate and crush together. I shall waste mountains and hills, wither all their growth. I shall turn rivers into shores, wither wetland. I shall enable blind people to go by a way they haven’t known, lead them on paths they haven’t known. I shall make the darkness in front of them into light, rough places into level ground. These are the words I am acting on, and I will not abandon them.’
They’re turning back, they’re utterly shamed, the people who trust in an image, Who say to an idol, ‘You’re our god.’
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
God be in head and in my understanding; God be in my eyes and in my looking; God be in my mouth and in my speaking; God be in my heart and in my thinking; God be at my end and at my departing.
There is my servant whom I support, my chosen whom I myself accept. I’m putting my breath on him; he will see that my exercise of authority gets out to the nations. He won’t cry out and he won’t raise or make his voice heard, in the streets. A broken cane he won’t snap, a flickering lamp he won’t snuff. For the sake of truthfulness he’ll see the exercise of authority gets out, he won’t flicker or break, Until he sets the exercise of authority in the earth, as foreign shores wait for his instruction.
The God Yahweh has said this, the one who created the heavens and stretched them, beating out the earth and its produce, Giving air to the people on it, breath to those who walk on it: ‘I am Yahweh, I called you in faithfulness, took strong hold of your hand. I formed you and gave you as a pact for the people, a light for the nations, In opening blind eyes, in getting the captive out from the dungeon, from the prison people who are living in the dark. I am Yahweh, that is my name; my splendour I do not give to another, or my praise to images. The previous events – here, they came about; and I’m telling of new events – before they grow, I let you hear.’
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
Lord God, your feed us with the living bread from heaven. You renew our faith increase our hope and strengthen our love. Teach us to hunger for Christ who is the true and living bread and live by every word that comes from your mouth, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
‘Present your argument’, Yahweh says. ‘Bring up your strong points’, says Ya’aqob’s King. They should bring them up and tell us what will happen. The previous events – tell us what they were, so we may apply our mind and acknowledge their outcome. Or let us hear about the coming events, tell us things that will arrive after, so we may acknowledge that you are gods. Yes, do something good or do something bad, so we may bow low and see together. Here, you’re less than nothing, your action is less than a sigh; it’s an offence that someone chooses in you.
I aroused one from the north and he arrived, from the rising of the sun one who would call on my name. He came on viceroys as if they were mire, as if he was a potter who treads clay. Who told of it from the beginning so we might acknowledge him, beforehand so we might say ‘He was right’?
No, there was no one telling of it; no, there was no one letting us hear about it; no, there was no one hearing your words. The first for Tsiyyon (‘Here, here they are’), for Yerushalaim, I give a bringer of news. Were I to look, there was no one; of them, there was no counsellor, who could speak a word back if I asked them. There, they are all a bane, their acts are zero, their images are a breath, emptiness.
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, Taking, as Jesus did, This sinful world as it is, Not as I would have it, Trusting that You will make all things right, If I surrender to Your will, So that I may be reasonably happy in this life, And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Be silent for me, foreign shores; peoples must renew their energy. They must come up, then speak; together let us draw near for making a ruling. Who aroused someone from the east whom faithfulness calls to its heel? He gives up nations before him, enables him to put down kings. He makes them like earth with his sword, like driven straw with his bow. As he pursues them, he passes on with things being well by a path on which he doesn’t come straight. Who acted and did it, calling the generations from the beginning? I am Yahweh, the first, and I myself am with the last. Foreign shores have seen and become afraid, earth’s ends tremble, they’ve drawn near and come. An individual helps his neighbour, and says to his brother, ‘Be strong!’ Craftworker bids smith be strong, one who flattens with a hammer [bids] one who strikes with a mallet. One who says of the joint, ‘It’s good’, strengthens it with fastenings so it doesn’t slip.
But you as Yisra’el are my servant, as Ya’aqob you’re the one that I chose. As the offspring of Abraham you’re my friend, the one of whom I took strong hold from earth’s ends, Called from its corners, and said to you, ‘You’re my servant, I chose you, and didn’t spurn you.’ Don’t be afraid, because I’m with you; don’t be frightened, because I’m your God. I’m making you firm, yes, helping you, yes, supporting you with my faithful right hand. There, they’ll be shamed and disgraced, all who rage at you. They’ll become absolutely nothing, they’ll perish, the people who argue with you. You will seek them and not find them, the people who attack you. They will become absolutely nothing, zero, the people who do battle against you. Because I am Yahweh your God, who takes strong hold of your right hand, Who says to you, ‘Don’t be afraid, I myself am helping you.’
Don’t be afraid, worm Ya’aqob, relics Yisra’el. I’m helping you (Yahweh’s declaration), Yisra’el’s sacred one is your restorer. There, I am making you into a harrow, a new thresher fitted with points. You’ll trample mountains and crush them, and make hills like chaff. You’ll winnow them and the wind will carry them, the hurricane will scatter them. And you yourselves will rejoice in Yahweh; in Yisra’el’s sacred one you’ll exult.
When the humble and the needy are seeking water, but there is none, their tongue is parched with thirst. I Yahweh will answer them; the God of Yisra’el will not abandon them. I will open up rivers on the bare places, springs in the middle of the valleys. I will make the wilderness into a pool of water, dry land into water courses. In the wilderness I will put cedar, acacia, myrtle and oil tree. In the steppe I will set juniper, maple and cypress, together, In order that people may see and acknowledge, consider and discern together, That Yahweh’s hand did this, Yisra’el’s sacred one created it.
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that thou art – Thou my best thought, by day or by night; Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Who gauged the water in his palm, surveyed the heavens with his span, Measured the world’s earth by the gallon, weighed the mountains with a balance, the hills with scales? Who directed Yahweh’s spirit, or as the person to give him counsel made it known to him? With whom did he take counsel, so that he helped him understand, taught him the way to exercise authority, Taught him knowledge, made known to him the way of understanding? There, nations count like a drop from a pan, like a cloud on scales; there, foreign shores are like a fine cloud that rises. Lebanon – there’s not enough to burn up, its animals – there aren’t enough as a burnt offering. All the nations are like nothing over against him; they count as less than naught, emptiness, to him.
So to whom would you compare God, or what comparison would you line up for him? The image, which a craftworker casts? – a smith beats it out with gold, and a smith with silver chains. Is it sissoo fit for tribute, wood that doesn’t rot, that someone chooses? He seeks for himself a smart craftworker to set up an image so it doesn’t slip.
You acknowledge, don’t you, you listen, don’t you? It’s been told you from the beginning, hasn’t it, you’ve understood earth’s foundations, haven’t you? There’s one who sits above earth’s horizon, with its inhabitants like grasshoppers, One who stretched out the heavens like net, spread them like a tent for sitting in, One who turns sovereigns into nothing, makes earth’s authorities pure emptiness. They’re really not planted, really not sown, their stem is really not rooting in the earth, Then he blows on them and they shrivel, and a hurricane carries them off like straw.
So to whom would you compare me, so I could be similar (says the Sacred One)? Lift your eyes on high and see – who created these? The one who takes out their army by number calls to all of them by name. Because of the greatness of his power, and as one firm in energy, not one lags behind.
Why do you say, Ya’aqob, and speak, Yisra’el, ‘My way was hidden from Yahweh, a ruling for me passes away from my God’? Haven’t you acknowledged, or haven’t you listened? Yahweh is God of the ages, creator of earth’s ends. He doesn’t get faint or weary; there’s no searching out of his understanding. He gives energy to the faint, and to the one who has no resources he gives much strength. Youths may get faint and weary, young men may totally collapse. But people who hope in Yahweh get new energy, they grow pinions like eagles. They run and don’t get weary, they walk and don’t faint.
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
Lord, you have given me so much, I ask for one more thing – a grateful heart.
‘Speak to Yerushalaim’s heart, call to it That its tour of duty is fulfilled, that its waywardness is paid for, That it has taken from Yahweh’s hand double for all its wrongdoings.’
A voice is calling: ‘In the wilderness clear Yahweh’s way, make straight in the steppe a causeway for our God. Every ravine is to rise up, every mountain and hill is to fall down. The ridge is to become level, the cliffs a valley. Yahweh’s splendour will appear, and all flesh will see it together, because Yahweh’s mouth has spoken.’
A voice is saying, ‘Call’, but someone says, ‘Call what? All flesh is grass, and all its commitment is like a wild flower’s. Grass withers, a flower fades, when Yahweh’s wind blows on it.’ ‘Yes, the people is grass; grass withers, a flower fades – but our God’s word rises up permanently.’
Get yourself up on to a high mountain as a bringer of news to Tsiyyon. Raise your voice with energy as a bringer of news to Yerushalaim. Raise it, don’t be afraid, say to Yehudah’s towns, ‘Here is your God, here is the Lord Yahweh.’ He comes as the strong one, his arm is going to rule for him. Here, his reward is with him, his earnings before him. Like a shepherd who pastures his flock, he collects lambs in his arms. He carries them in his embrace, guides the nursing ones.
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, John; Wright, Tom; Wright, Tom. The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
Be thou a bright flame before me, Be thou a guiding star above me Be thou a smooth path below me Be thou a kindly shepherd behind me Today – tonight -forever Amen.
The brothers / sisters with me, greet you all. All the saints greet you, especially those from Caesar’s house
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with (each of) your spirit(s).
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union, where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
I have been filled having received from Epaphroditus the (gifts) from you all. a fragrant offering an acceptable sacrifice pleasing to God.
And my God will fill your every need according to his riches, in glory in Christ Jesus. And may glory (honour) be given to God and our Father for ever and ever. Amen.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union, where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.