The Berean Pursuit
Woe to you, O destroyer never destroyed,
O traitor never betrayed!
When you have finished destroying,
you will be destroyed.
When you have finished betraying,
you will be betrayed.
O LORD, be gracious to us!
We wait for You.
Be our strength every morning
and our salvation in time of trouble.
The peoples flee the thunder of Your voice;
the nations scatter when You rise.
Your spoil, O nations, is gathered as by locusts;
like a swarm of locusts men sweep over it.
The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high;
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
He will be the sure foundation for your times,
a storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge.
The fear of the LORD is Zion's treasure.
Behold, their valiant ones cry aloud in the streets;
the envoys of peace weep bitterly.
The highways are deserted;
travel has ceased.
The treaty has been broken,
the witnesses are despised,
and human life is disregarded.
The land mourns and languishes;
Lebanon is ashamed and decayed.
Sharon is like a desert;
Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.
"Now I will arise," says the LORD.
"Now I will lift Myself up. Now I will be exalted.
You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble.
Your breath is a fire that will consume you.
The peoples will be burned to ashes,
like thorns cut down and set ablaze.
You who are far off, hear what I have done;
you who are near, acknowledge My might."
The sinners in Zion are afraid;
trembling grips the ungodly:
"Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire?
Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?"
He who walks righteously
and speaks with sincerity,
who refuses gain from extortion,
whose hand never takes a bribe,
who stops his ears against murderous plots
and shuts his eyes tightly against evil-
he will dwell on the heights;
the mountain fortress will be his refuge;
his food will be provided
and his water assured.
Your eyes will see the King in His beauty
and behold a land that stretches afar.
Your mind will ponder the former terror:
"Where is he who tallies? Where is he who weighs?
Where is he who counts the towers?"
You will no longer see the insolent,
a people whose speech is unintelligible,
who stammer in a language you cannot understand.
Look upon Zion,
the city of our appointed feasts.
Your eyes will see Jerusalem,
a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander;
its tent pegs will not be pulled up,
nor will any of its cords be broken.
But there the Majestic One, our LORD,
will be for us a place of rivers and wide canals,
where no galley with oars will row,
and no majestic vessel will pass.
For the LORD is our Judge,
the LORD is our lawgiver,
the LORD is our King.
It is He who will save us.
Your ropes are slack;
they cannot secure the mast or spread the sail.
Then an abundance of spoils will be divided,
and even the lame will carry off plunder.
And no resident of Zion will say, "I am sick."
The people who dwell there
will be forgiven of iniquity.
Come near, O nations, to listen;
pay attention, O peoples.
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it,
the world and all that springs from it.
The LORD is angry with all the nations
and furious with all their armies.
He will devote them to destruction;
He will give them over to slaughter.
Their slain will be left unburied,
and the stench of their corpses will rise;
the mountains will flow with their blood.
All the stars of heaven will be dissolved.
The skies will be rolled up like a scroll,
and all their stars will fall
like withered leaves from the vine,
like foliage from the fig tree.
When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,
then it will come down upon Edom,
upon the people I have devoted to destruction.
The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood.
It drips with fat-
with the blood of lambs and goats,
with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
And the wild oxen will fall with them,
the young bulls with the strong ones.
Their land will be drenched with blood,
and their soil will be soaked with fat.
For the LORD has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
Edom's streams will be turned to tar,
and her soil to sulfur;
her land will become a blazing pitch.
It will not be quenched-day or night.
Its smoke will ascend forever.
From generation to generation it will lie desolate;
no one will ever again pass through it.
The desert owl and screech owl will possess it,
and the great owl and raven will dwell in it.
The LORD will stretch out over Edom
a measuring line of chaos
and a plumb line of destruction.
No nobles will be left to proclaim a king,
and all her princes will come to nothing.
Her towers will be overgrown with thorns,
her fortresses with thistles and briers.
She will become a haunt for jackals,
an abode for ostriches.
The desert creatures will meet with hyenas,
and one wild goat will call to another.
There the night creature will settle
and find her place of repose.
There the owl will make her nest;
she will lay and hatch her eggs
and gather her brood under her shadow.
Even there the birds of prey will gather,
each with its mate.
Search and read the scroll of the LORD:
Not one of these will go missing,
not one will lack her mate,
because He has ordered it by His mouth,
and He will gather them by His Spirit.
He has allotted their portion;
His hand has distributed it by measure.
They will possess it forever;
they will dwell in it from generation to generation.
The wilderness and the land will be glad;
the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.
It will bloom profusely
and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
Strengthen the limp hands
and steady the feeble knees!
Say to those with anxious hearts:
"Be strong, do not fear!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance.
With divine retribution He will come to save you."
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then the lame will leap like a deer
and the mute tongue will shout for joy.
For waters will gush forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert.
The parched ground will become a pool,
the thirsty land springs of water.
In the haunt where jackals once lay,
there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.
And there will be a highway
called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not travel it-
only those who walk in the Way-
and fools will not stray onto it.
No lion will be there,
and no vicious beast will go up on it.
Such will not be found there,
but the redeemed will walk upon it.
So the redeemed of the LORD will return
and enter Zion with singing,
crowned with everlasting joy.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee.