1 “Sing, barren woman who has never had a child! Burst into song, shout for joy,
you who have never been in labor! For the deserted wife will have more children
than the woman who is living with her husband,” says YAHUVEH.
2 Enlarge the space for your tent, extend the curtains of your dwelling; do not
hold back, lengthen your cords, make your tent pegs firm.
3 For you will spread out to the right and the left, your descendants will
possess the nations and inhabit the desolated cities.
4 Don’t be afraid, for you won’t be ashamed; don’t be discouraged, for you won’t
be disgraced. You will forget the shame of your youth, no longer remember the
dishonor of being widowed.
5 For your husband is your Maker, YAHUVEH–Tzva’ot is his name. The Holy One of
Isra’el is your Redeemer. He will be called the God of all the earth.
6 For YAHUVEH has called you back like a wife abandoned and grief-stricken; “A
wife married in her youth cannot be rejected,” says your God.
7 “Briefly I abandoned you, but with great compassion I am taking you back.
8 I was angry for a moment and hid my face from you; but with everlasting grace
I will have compassion on you,” says YAHUVEH your Redeemer.
9 “For me this is like Noach’s flood. Just as I swore that no flood like Noach’s
would ever again cover the earth, so now I swear that never again will I be
angry with you or rebuke you.
10 For the mountains may leave and the hills be removed, but my grace will never
leave you, and my covenant of peace will not be removed,” says YAHUVEH, who has
compassion on you.
11 “Storm-ravaged [city], unconsoled, I will set your stones in the finest way,
lay your foundations with sapphires,
12 make your windows shine with rubies, your gates with garnet, your walls with
gemstones.
13 All your children will be taught by YAHUVEH; your children will have great
peace.
14 In righteousness you will be established, far from oppression, with nothing
to fear; far from ruin, for it will not come near you.
15 Any alliance that forms against you will not be my doing; whoever tries to
form such an alliance will fall because of you.
16 It is I who created the craftsman who blows on the coals and forges weapons
suited to their purpose; I also created the destroyer to work havoc.
17 No weapon made will prevail against you. In court you will refute every
accusation. The servants of YAHUVEH inherit all this; says YAHUVEH.
*~Isaiah Chapter 55 ~*
1 “All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You without money, come, buy,
and eat! Yes, come! Buy wine and milk without money — it’s free!
2 Why spend money for what isn’t food, your wages for what doesn’t satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and you will eat well, you will enjoy the fat of the
land.
3 Open your ears, and come to me; listen well, and you will live — I will make
an everlasting covenant with you, the grace I assured David.
4 I have given him as a witness to the peoples, a leader and lawgiver for the
peoples.
5 You will summon a nation you do not know, and a nation that doesn’t know you
will run to you, for the sake of YAHUVEH your God, the Holy One of Isra’el, who
will glorify you.”
1 Peter 3:8–22
8 Finally, all of you, be one in mind and feeling; love as brothers; and be
compassionate and humble-minded,
9 not repaying evil with evil or insult with insult, but, on the contrary, with
blessing. For it is to this that you have been called, so that you may receive a
blessing.
10 For “Whoever wants to love life and see good days must keep his tongue from
evil and his lips from speaking deceit,
11 turn from evil and do good,seek peace and chase after it.
12 For YAHUVEH keeps his eyes on the righteous,and his ears are open to their
prayers;but the face of YAHUVEH is against those who do evil things.”
13 For who will hurt you if you become zealots for what is good?
14 But even if you do suffer for being righteous, you are blessed! Moreover,
don’t fear what they fear or be disturbed,
15 but treat the Messiah as holy, as Lord in your hearts;[b] while remaining
always ready to give a reasoned answer to anyone who asks you to explain the
hope you have in you — yet with humility and fear,
16 keeping your conscience clear, so that when you are spoken against, those who
abuse the good behavior flowing from your union with the Messiah may be put to
shame.
17 For if ELOHIM has in fact willed that you should suffer, it is better that
you suffer for doing what is good than for doing what is evil.
18 For the Messiah himself died for sins, once and for all, a righteous person
on behalf of unrighteous people, so that he might bring you to ELOHIM. He was
put to death in the flesh but brought to life by the Spirit;
19 and in this form he went and made a proclamation to the imprisoned spirits,
20 to those who were disobedient long ago, in the days of Noach, when ELOHIM
waited patiently during the building of the ark, in which a few people — to be
specific, eight — were delivered by means of water.
21 This also prefigures what delivers us now, the water of immersion, which is
not the removal of dirt from the body, but one’s pledge to keep a good
conscience toward God, through the resurrection of YAHUSHUA the MASHIACH.
22 He has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of ELOHIM,[c] with angels,
authorities and powers subject to him.