Warning against Pagan Influences

2 Corinthians 6 ¹⁴Do not try to work together as equals with unbelievers, for it cannot be done. How can right and wrong be partners? How can light and darkness live together? ¹⁵How can Christ and the Devil agree? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? ¹⁶How can God's temple come to terms with pagan idols? For we are the temple of the living God! As God himself has said,
"I will make my home with my people
and live among them;
I will be their God,
and they shall be my people."
¹⁷And so the Lord says,
"You must leave them
and separate yourselves from them.
Have nothing to do with what is unclean,
and I will accept you.
¹⁸I will be your father,
and you shall be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty."
2 Corinthians 7 All these promises are made to us, my dear friends. So then, let us purify ourselves from everything that makes body or soul unclean, and let us be completely holy by living in awe of God.

Paul's Joy

²Make room for us in your hearts. We have wronged no one; we have ruined no one, nor tried to take advantage of anyone. ³I do not say this to condemn you; for, as I have said before, you are so dear to us that we are always together, whether we live or die. ⁴I am so sure of you; I take such pride in you! In all our troubles I am still full of courage; I am running over with joy.
⁵Even after we arrived in Macedonia, we did not have any rest. There were troubles everywhere, quarrels with others, fears in our hearts. ⁶But God, who encourages the downhearted, encouraged us with the coming of Titus. ⁷It was not only his coming that cheered us, but also his report of how you encouraged him. He told us how much you want to see me, how sorry you are, how ready you are to defend me; and so I am even happier now.
⁸For even if that letter of mine made you sad, I am not sorry I wrote it. I could have been sorry when I saw that it made you sad for a while. ⁹But now I am happy--not because I made you sad, but because your sadness made you change your ways. That sadness was used by God, and so we caused you no harm. ¹⁰For the sadness that is used by God brings a change of heart that leads to salvation--and there is no regret in that! But sadness that is merely human causes death. ¹¹See what God did with this sadness of yours: how earnest it has made you, how eager to prove your innocence! Such indignation, such alarm, such feelings, such devotion, such readiness to punish wrongdoing! You have shown yourselves to be without fault in the whole matter.
¹²So, even though I wrote that letter, it was not because of the one who did wrong or the one who was wronged. Instead, I wrote it to make plain to you, in God's sight, how deep your devotion to us really is. ¹³That is why we were encouraged.
Not only were we encouraged; how happy Titus made us with his happiness over the way in which all of you helped to cheer him up! ¹⁴I did boast of you to him, and you have not disappointed me. We have always spoken the truth to you, and in the same way the boast we made to Titus has proved true. ¹⁵And so his love for you grows stronger, as he remembers how all of you were ready to obey his instructions, how you welcomed him with fear and trembling. ¹⁶How happy I am that I can depend on you completely!

The King Asks Isaiah's Advice
(Isaiah 37.1-7)

2 Kings 19 As soon as King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes in grief, put on sackcloth, and went to the Temple of the LORD. ²He sent Eliakim, the official in charge of the palace, Shebna, the court secretary, and the senior priests to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They also were wearing sackcloth. ³This is the message which he told them to give Isaiah: "Today is a day of suffering; we are being punished and are in disgrace. We are like a woman who is ready to give birth, but is too weak to do it. ⁴The Assyrian emperor has sent his chief official to insult the living God. May the LORD your God hear these insults and punish those who spoke them. So pray to God for those of our people who survive."
⁵When Isaiah received King Hezekiah's message, ⁶he sent back this answer: "The LORD tells you not to let the Assyrians frighten you with their claims that he cannot save you. ⁷The LORD will cause the emperor to hear a rumor that will make him go back to his own country, and the LORD will have him killed there."

The Assyrians Send Another Threat
(Isaiah 37.8-20)

⁸The Assyrian official learned that the emperor had left Lachish and was fighting against the nearby city of Libnah; so he went there to consult him. ⁹Word reached the Assyrians that the Egyptian army, led by King Tirhakah of Ethiopia, was coming to attack them. When the emperor heard this, he sent a letter to King Hezekiah of Judah ¹⁰to tell him, "The god you are trusting in has told you that you will not fall into my hands, but don't let that deceive you. ¹¹You have heard what an Assyrian emperor does to any country he decides to destroy. Do you think that you can escape? ¹²My ancestors destroyed the cities of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and killed the people of Betheden who lived in Telassar, and none of their gods could save them. ¹³Where are the kings of the cities of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
¹⁴King Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went to the Temple, placed the letter there in the presence of the LORD, ¹⁵and prayed, "O LORD, the God of Israel, seated on your throne above the winged creatures, you alone are God, ruling all the kingdoms of the world. You created the earth and the sky. ¹⁶Now, LORD, look at what is happening to us. Listen to all the things that Sennacherib is saying to insult you, the living God. ¹⁷We all know, LORD, that the emperors of Assyria have destroyed many nations, made their lands desolate, ¹⁸and burned up their gods--which were no gods at all, only images of wood and stone made by human hands. ¹⁹Now, LORD our God, rescue us from the Assyrians, so that all the nations of the world will know that only you, O LORD, are God."

Isaiah's Message to the King
(Isaiah 37.21-38)

²⁰Then Isaiah sent a message telling King Hezekiah that in answer to the king's prayer ²¹the LORD had said, "The city of Jerusalem laughs at you, Sennacherib, and makes fun of you. ²²Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? You have been disrespectful to me, the holy God of Israel. ²³You sent your messengers to boast to me that with all your chariots you had conquered the highest mountains of Lebanon. You boasted that there you cut down the tallest cedars and the finest cypress trees and that you reached the deepest parts of the forests. ²⁴You boasted that you dug wells and drank water in foreign lands and that the feet of your soldiers tramped the Nile River dry.
²⁵"Have you never heard that I planned all this long ago? And now I have carried it out. I gave you the power to turn fortified cities into piles of rubble. ²⁶The people who lived there were powerless; they were frightened and stunned. They were like grass in a field or weeds growing on a roof when the hot east wind blasts them.
²⁷"But I know everything about you, what you do and where you go. I know how you rage against me. ²⁸I have received the report of that rage and that pride of yours, and now I will put a hook through your nose and a bit in your mouth, and take you back by the same road you came."
²⁹Then Isaiah said to King Hezekiah, "Here is a sign of what will happen. This year and next you will have only wild grain to eat, but the following year you will be able to plant your grain and harvest it, and plant vines and eat grapes. ³⁰Those in Judah who survive will flourish like plants that send roots deep into the ground and produce fruit. ³¹There will be people in Jerusalem and on Mount Zion who will survive, because the LORD is determined to make this happen.
³²"And this is what the LORD has said about the Assyrian emperor: 'He will not enter this city or shoot a single arrow against it. No soldiers with shields will come near the city, and no siege mounds will be built around it. ³³He will go back by the same road he came, without entering this city. I, the LORD, have spoken. ³⁴I will defend this city and protect it, for the sake of my own honor and because of the promise I made to my servant David.'"
³⁵That night an angel of the LORD went to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 soldiers. At dawn the next day there they lay, all dead! ³⁶Then the Assyrian emperor Sennacherib withdrew and returned to Nineveh. ³⁷One day, when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, killed him with their swords and then escaped to the land of Ararat. Another of his sons, Esarhaddon, succeeded him as emperor.

The Book of
NAHUM

Nahum 1 This is a message about Nineveh, the account of a vision seen by Nahum, who was from Elkosh.

The LORD's Anger against Nineveh

²The LORD God tolerates no rivals;
he punishes those who oppose him.
In his anger he pays them back.
³The LORD does not easily become angry,
but he is powerful
and never lets the guilty go unpunished.

Where the LORD walks, storms arise;
the clouds are the dust raised by his feet!
⁴He commands the sea, and it dries up!
He makes the rivers go dry.
The fields of Bashan wither,
Mount Carmel turns brown,
and the flowers of Lebanon fade.
⁵Mountains quake in the presence of the LORD;
hills melt before him.
The earth shakes when the LORD appears;
the world and all its people tremble.
⁶When he is angry, who can survive?
Who can survive his terrible fury?
He pours out his flaming anger;
rocks crumble to dust before him.

⁷The LORD is good;
he protects his people in times of trouble;
he takes care of those who turn to him.
⁸Like a great rushing flood he completely destroys his enemies;
he sends to their death those who oppose him.
⁹What are you plotting against the LORD?
He will destroy you.
No one opposes him more than once.
¹⁰Like tangled thorns and dry straw
you drunkards will be burned up!

¹¹From you, Nineveh, there came someone full of wicked schemes, who plotted against the LORD. ¹²This is what the LORD says to his people Israel: "Even though the Assyrians are strong and numerous, they will be destroyed and disappear. My people, I made you suffer, but I will not do it again. ¹³I will now end Assyria's power over you and break the chains that bind you."
¹⁴This is what the LORD has decreed about the Assyrians: "They will have no descendants to carry on their name. I will destroy the idols that are in the temples of their gods. I am preparing a grave for the Assyrians--they don't deserve to live!"
¹⁵Look, a messenger is coming over the mountains with good news! He is on his way to announce the victory! People of Judah, celebrate your festivals and give God what you solemnly promised him. The wicked will never invade your land again. They have been totally destroyed!