The Peacemaker

1Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

2The people walking in darkness

have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of deep darkness

a light has dawned.

3You have enlarged the nation

and increased their joy;

they rejoice before you

as people rejoice at the harvest,

as warriors rejoice

when dividing the plunder.

4For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,

you have shattered

the yoke that burdens them,

the bar across their shoulders,

the rod of their oppressor.

5Every warrior’s boot used in battle

and every garment rolled in blood

will be destined for burning,

will be fuel for the fire.

6For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7Of the greatness of his government and peace

there will be no end.

He will reign on David’s throne

and over his kingdom,

establishing and upholding it

with justice and righteousness

from that time on and forever.

The zeal of the

will accomplish this.

The

8The Lord has sent a message against Jacob;

it will fall on Israel.

9All the people will know it—

Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria—

who say with pride

and arrogance of heart,

10“The bricks have fallen down,

but we will rebuild with dressed stone;

the fig trees have been felled,

but we will replace them with cedars.”

11But the

and has spurred their enemies on.

12Arameans from the east and Philistines from the west

have devoured Israel with open mouth.

Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,

his hand is still upraised.

13But the people have not returned to him who struck them,

nor have they sought the

14So the

both palm branch and reed in a single day;

15the elders and dignitaries are the head,

the prophets who teach lies are the tail.

16Those who guide this people mislead them,

and those who are guided are led astray.

17Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men,

nor will he pity the fatherless and widows,

for everyone is ungodly and wicked,

every mouth speaks folly.

Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,

his hand is still upraised.

18Surely wickedness burns like a fire;

it consumes briers and thorns,

it sets the forest thickets ablaze,

so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke.

19By the wrath of the

the land will be scorched

and the people will be fuel for the fire;

they will not spare one another.

20On the right they will devour,

but still be hungry;

on the left they will eat,

but not be satisfied.

Each will feed on the flesh of their own offspring:

21Manasseh will feed on Ephraim, and Ephraim on Manasseh;

together they will turn against Judah.

Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,

his hand is still upraised.

1Who has believed our message

and to whom has the arm of the

2He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4Surely he took up our pain

and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.

5But he was pierced for our transgressions,

he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

and by his wounds we are healed.

6We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the

the iniquity of us all.

7He was oppressed and afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

8By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

Yet who of his generation protested?

For he was cut off from the land of the living;

for the transgression of my people he was punished.

9He was assigned a grave with the wicked,

and with the rich in his death,

though he had done no violence,

nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10Yet it was the

and though the

he will see his offspring and prolong his days,

and the will of the

11After he has suffered,

he will see the light of life and be satisfied;

by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,

and he will bear their iniquities.

12Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,

and he will divide the spoils with the strong,

because he poured out his life unto death,

and was numbered with the transgressors.

For he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

1But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. 2Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. 3The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, 4and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.

6After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark 7and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

13By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

15Then God said to Noah, 16“Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”

18So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

20Then Noah built an altar to the

22“As long as the earth endures,

seedtime and harvest,

cold and heat,

summer and winter,

day and night

will never cease.”