Day 257: Isaiah 25:1-28:13; Galatians 3:8-22; Psalm 61:1-8; Proverbs 23:17-18

Isaiah 25:1-28:13

25 O Lord, You are my God.
I will exalt You,
I will praise Your name,
For You have done wonderful things;
Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.
² For You have made a city a ruin,
A fortified city a ruin,
A palace of foreigners to be a city no more;
It will never be rebuilt.
³ Therefore the strong people will glorify You;
The city of the terrible nations will fear You.
⁴ For You have been a strength to the poor,
A strength to the needy in his distress,
A refuge from the storm,
A shade from the heat;
For the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
⁵ You will reduce the noise of aliens,
As heat in a dry place;
As heat in the shadow of a cloud,
The song of the terrible ones will be diminished.

⁶ And in this mountain
The Lord of hosts will make for all people
A feast of choice pieces,
A feast of wines on the lees,
Of fat things full of marrow,
Of well-refined wines on the lees.
⁷ And He will destroy on this mountain
The surface of the covering cast over all people,
And the veil that is spread over all nations.
⁸ He will swallow up death forever,
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.

⁹ And it will be said in that day:
“Behold, this is our God;
We have waited for Him, and He will save us.
This is the Lord;
We have waited for Him;
We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”

¹⁰ For on this mountain the hand of the Lord will rest,
And Moab shall be trampled down under Him,
As straw is trampled down for the refuse heap.
¹¹ And He will spread out His hands in their midst
As a swimmer reaches out to swim,
And He will bring down their pride
Together with the trickery of their hands.
¹² The fortress of the high fort of your walls
He will bring down, lay low,
And bring to the ground, down to the dust.

26 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

“We have a strong city;
God will appoint salvation for walls and bulwarks.
² Open the gates,
That the righteous nation which keeps the truth may enter in.
³ You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
⁴ Trust in the Lord forever,
For in Yah, the Lord, is everlasting strength.
⁵ For He brings down those who dwell on high,
The lofty city;
He lays it low,
He lays it low to the ground,
He brings it down to the dust.
⁶ The foot shall tread it down—
The feet of the poor
And the steps of the needy.”

⁷ The way of the just is uprightness;
O Most Upright,
You weigh the path of the just.
⁸ Yes, in the way of Your judgments,
O Lord, we have waited for You;
The desire of our soul is for Your name
And for the remembrance of You.
⁹ With my soul I have desired You in the night,
Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early;
For when Your judgments are in the earth,
The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

¹⁰ Let grace be shown to the wicked,
Yet he will not learn righteousness;
In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of the Lord.
¹¹ Lord, when Your hand is lifted up, they will not see.
But they will see and be ashamed
For their envy of people;
Yes, the fire of Your enemies shall devour them.

¹² Lord, You will establish peace for us,
For You have also done all our works in us.
¹³ O Lord our God, masters besides You
Have had dominion over us;
But by You only we make mention of Your name.
¹⁴ They are dead, they will not live;
They are deceased, they will not rise.
Therefore You have punished and destroyed them,
And made all their memory to perish.
¹⁵ You have increased the nation, O Lord,
You have increased the nation;
You are glorified;
You have expanded all the borders of the land.

¹⁶ Lord, in trouble they have visited You,
They poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them.
¹⁷ As a woman with child
Is in pain and cries out in her pangs,
When she draws near the time of her delivery,
So have we been in Your sight, O Lord.
¹⁸ We have been with child, we have been in pain;
We have, as it were, brought forth wind;
We have not accomplished any deliverance in the earth,
Nor have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

¹⁹ Your dead shall live;
Together with my dead body they shall arise.
Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust;
For your dew is like the dew of herbs,
And the earth shall cast out the dead.

²⁰ Come, my people, enter your chambers,
And shut your doors behind you;
Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment,
Until the indignation is past.
²¹ For behold, the Lord comes out of His place
To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
The earth will also disclose her blood,
And will no more cover her slain.

27 In that day the Lord with His severe sword, great and strong,
Will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
Leviathan that twisted serpent;
And He will slay the reptile that is in the sea.

² In that day sing to her,
“A vineyard of red wine!
³ I, the Lord, keep it,
I water it every moment;
Lest any hurt it,
I keep it night and day.
⁴ Fury is not in Me.
Who would set briers and thorns
Against Me in battle?
I would go through them,
I would burn them together.
⁵ Or let him take hold of My strength,
That he may make peace with Me;
And he shall make peace with Me.”

⁶ Those who come He shall cause to take root in Jacob;
Israel shall blossom and bud,
And fill the face of the world with fruit.

⁷ Has He struck Israel as He struck those who struck him?
Or has He been slain according to the slaughter of those who were slain by Him?
⁸ In measure, by sending it away,
You contended with it.
He removes it by His rough wind
In the day of the east wind.
⁹ Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be covered;
And this is all the fruit of taking away his sin:
When he makes all the stones of the altar
Like chalkstones that are beaten to dust,
Wooden images and incense altars shall not stand.

¹⁰ Yet the fortified city will be desolate,
The habitation forsaken and left like a wilderness;
There the calf will feed, and there it will lie down
And consume its branches.
¹¹ When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off;
The women come and set them on fire.
For it is a people of no understanding;
Therefore He who made them will not have mercy on them,
And He who formed them will show them no favor.

¹² And it shall come to pass in that day
That the Lord will thresh,
From the channel of the River to the Brook of Egypt;
And you will be gathered one by one,
O you children of Israel.

¹³ So it shall be in that day:
The great trumpet will be blown;
They will come, who are about to perish in the land of Assyria,
And they who are outcasts in the land of Egypt,
And shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

28 Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim,
Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower
Which is at the head of the verdant valleys,
To those who are overcome with wine!
² Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one,
Like a tempest of hail and a destroying storm,
Like a flood of mighty waters overflowing,
Who will bring them down to the earth with His hand.
³ The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim,
Will be trampled underfoot;
⁴ And the glorious beauty is a fading flower
Which is at the head of the verdant valley,
Like the first fruit before the summer,
Which an observer sees;
He eats it up while it is still in his hand.

⁵ In that day the Lord of hosts will be
For a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty
To the remnant of His people,
⁶ For a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment,
And for strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

⁷ But they also have erred through wine,
And through intoxicating drink are out of the way;
The priest and the prophet have erred through intoxicating drink,
They are swallowed up by wine,
They are out of the way through intoxicating drink;
They err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
⁸ For all tables are full of vomit and filth;
No place is clean.

⁹ “Whom will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
¹⁰ For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”

¹¹ For with stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
¹² To whom He said, “This is the rest with which
You may cause the weary to rest,”
And, “This is the refreshing”;
Yet they would not hear.
¹³ But the word of the Lord was to them,
“Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little,”
That they might go and fall backward, and be broken
And snared and caught.

Galatians 3:8-22

⁸ And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” ⁹ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

¹⁰ For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” ¹¹ But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” ¹² Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.”

¹³ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), ¹⁴ that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

¹⁵ Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. ¹⁶ Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ. ¹⁷ And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. ¹⁸ For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

¹⁹ What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. ²⁰ Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.

²¹ Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. ²² But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Psalm 61:1-8

61 Hear my cry, O God;
Attend to my prayer.
² From the end of the earth I will cry to You,
When my heart is overwhelmed;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

³ For You have been a shelter for me,
A strong tower from the enemy.
⁴ I will abide in Your tabernacle forever;
I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah

⁵ For You, O God, have heard my vows;
You have given me the heritage of those who fear Your name.
⁶ You will prolong the king’s life,
His years as many generations.
⁷ He shall abide before God forever.
Oh, prepare mercy and truth, which may preserve him!

⁸ So I will sing praise to Your name forever,
That I may daily perform my vows.

Proverbs 23:17-18

¹⁷ Do not let your heart envy sinners,
But be zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day;
¹⁸ For surely there is a hereafter,
And your hope will not be cut off.