8.6 Isaiah 52-54

Isaiah 52-54.

Transcript

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Hello, friends and neighbors. Welcome to the Sunny Side of Life Bible in a year experience. Join me each day as I read the Bible from start to finish. I'm reading from the Life Application Study Bible New Living Translation, published by Tyndale House Publishers. I pray this daily reading will bless you as much as it does me. So let's get started. August sixth, Isaiah, chapters fifty two through fifty-four. Wake up, wake up, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your beautiful clothes, O holy city of Jerusalem, for unclean and godless people will enter your gates no longer. Rise from the dust, O Jerusalem, sit in a place of honor. Remove the chains of slavery from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For this is what the Lord says. When I sold you into exile, I received no payment. Now I can redeem you without having to pay for you. This is what the sovereign Lord says. Long ago my people chose to live in Egypt. Now they are oppressed by Assyria. What is this? asked the Lord. Why are my people enslaved again? Those who rule them shout in exaltation. My name is blasphemed all day long. But I will reveal my name to my people, and they will come to know its power. Then at last they will recognize that I am the one who speaks to them. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns. The watchmen shout and sing with joy, for before their very eyes they see the Lord returning to Jerusalem. Let the ruins of Jerusalem break into joyful song, for the Lord has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has demonstrated his holy power before the eyes of all the nations, all the ends of the earth will see the victory of our God. Get out, get out and leave your captivity, where everything you touch is unclean. Get out of there and purify yourselves, you who carry home the sacred objects of the Lord. You will not leave in a hurry, running for your lives, for the Lord will go ahead of you. Yes, the God of Israel will protect you from behind. See, my servant will prosper, he will be highly exalted. But many were amazed when they saw him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from his appearance one would scarcely know he was a man. And he will startle many nations. Kings will stand speechless in his presence, for they will see what they had not been told. They will understand what they had not heard about. Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? My servant grew up in the Lord's presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried, it was our sorrows that weighed him down, and we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins. But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole, he was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is silent before the shears, he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal. He was put in a rich man's grave, but it was the Lord's good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord's good plan will prosper in his hands. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied, and because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels, he bore the sins of many, and interceded for rebels. Sing, O childless woman, you who have never given birth, break into loud and joyful song, O Jerusalem, you who have never been in labor. For the desolate woman now has more children than the woman who lives with her husband, says the Lord. Enlarge your house, build an addition, spread out your home, and spare no expense. For you will soon be bursting at the seams. Your descendants will occupy other nations and resettle the ruined cities. Fear not, you will no longer live in shame. Don't be afraid, there is no more disgrace for you. You will no longer remember the shame of your youth and the sorrows of widowhood. For your creator will be your husband, the Lord of heaven's armies is his name. He is your redeemer, the holy one of Israel, the God of all the earth. For the Lord has called you back from your grief, as though you were a young wife, abandoned by her husband, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will take you back. In a burst of anger I turned my face away for a little while, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your redeemer. Just as I swore in the time of Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth, so now I swear that I will never again be angry and punish you. For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you. O storm-battered city, troubled and desolate, I will rebuild you with precious jewels and make your foundations from lapis lazuli. I will make your towers of sparkling rubies, your gates of shining gems, and your walls of precious stones. I will teach all your children, and they will enjoy great peace. You will be secure under a government that is just and fair. Your enemies will stay far away. You will live in peace, and terror will not come near. If any nation comes to fight you, it is not because I sent them. Whoever attacks you will go down in defeat. I have created the blacksmith who fans the coals beneath the forge and makes the weapons of destruction, and I have created the armies that destroy. But in that coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed. You will silence every voice raised up to accuse you. These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord. Their vindication will come from me. I, the Lord, have spoken. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, power, and the glory forever.