Paul Wants To Visit the Church Again

1 Thessalonians 2 ¹⁷My friends, we were kept from coming to you for a while, but we never stopped thinking about you. We were eager to see you and tried our best to visit you in person. ¹⁸We really wanted to come. I myself tried several times, but Satan always stopped us. ¹⁹After all, when the Lord Jesus appears, who else but you will give us hope and joy and be like a glorious crown for us? ²⁰You alone are our glory and joy!
1 Thessalonians 3 Finally, we couldn't stand it any longer. We decided to stay in Athens by ourselves ²and send our friend Timothy to you. He works with us as God's servant and preaches the good news about Christ. We wanted him to make you strong in your faith and to encourage you. ³We didn't want any of you to be discouraged by all these troubles. You knew we would have to suffer, ⁴because when we were with you, we told you this would happen. And we did suffer, as you well know. ⁵At last, when I could not wait any longer, I sent Timothy to find out about your faith. I hoped that Satan had not tempted you and made all our work useless.
⁶Timothy has come back from his visit with you and has told us about your faith and love. He also said that you always have happy memories of us and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you.
⁷My friends, even though we have a lot of trouble and suffering, your faith makes us feel better about you. ⁸Your strong faith in the Lord is like a breath of new life. ⁹How can we possibly thank God enough for all the happiness you have brought us? ¹⁰Day and night we sincerely pray that we will see you again and help you to have an even stronger faith.
¹¹We pray that God our Father and our Lord Jesus will let us visit you. ¹²May the Lord make your love for each other and for everyone else grow by leaps and bounds. That's how our love for you has grown. ¹³And when our Lord comes with all of his people, I pray that he will make your hearts pure and innocent in the sight of God the Father.

Damascus Will Be Punished

Isaiah 17 This is a message about Damascus:
Damascus is doomed! It will end up in ruins.
²The villages around Aroer will be deserted,
with only sheep living there and no one to bother them.
³Israel will lose its fortresses.
The kingdom of Damascus will be destroyed;
its survivors will suffer the same fate as Israel.
The LORD All-Powerful has promised this.

Sin and Suffering

⁴When that time comes,
the glorious nation of Israel will be brought down;
its prosperous people will be skin and bones.
⁵Israel will be like wheat fields in Rephaim Valley
picked clean of grain.
⁶It will be like an olive tree beaten with a stick,
leaving two or three olives or maybe four or five
on the highest or most fruitful branches.
The LORD God of Israel has promised this.
⁷At that time the people will turn and trust their Creator, the holy God of Israel. ⁸They have built altars and places for burning incense to their goddess Asherah, and they have set up sacred poles for her. But they will stop worshiping at these places.
⁹Israel captured powerful cities and chased out the people who lived there. But these cities will lie in ruins, covered over with weeds and underbrush.
¹⁰Israel, you have forgotten the God who saves you,
the one who is the mighty rock
where you find protection.
You plant the finest flowers to honor a foreign god.
¹¹The plants may sprout and blossom that very same morning,
but it will do you no good,
because you will suffer endless agony.

God Defends His People

¹²The nations are a noisy, thunderous sea.
¹³But even if they roar like a fearsome flood,
God will give the command to turn them back.
They will be like dust, or like a tumbleweed
blowing across the hills in a windstorm.
¹⁴In the evening their attack is fierce,
but by morning they are destroyed.
This is what happens to those who raid and rob us.

Ethiopia Will Be Punished

Isaiah 18 Downstream from Ethiopia lies the country of Egypt,
swarming with insects.
²Egypt sends messengers up the Nile River
on ships made of reeds.
Send them fast to Ethiopia, whose people are tall
and have smooth skin.
Their land is divided by rivers;
they are strong and brutal, feared all over the world.

³Everyone on this earth, listen with care!
A signal will be given on the mountains,
and you will hear a trumpet.
⁴The LORD said to me,
"I will calmly look down from my home above--
as calmly as the sun at noon
or clouds in the heat of harvest season."

⁵Before the blossoms can turn into grapes,
God will cut off the sprouts and hack off the branches.
⁶Ethiopians will be food for mountain buzzards
during the summer
and for wild animals during the winter.
⁷Those Ethiopians are tall and their skin is smooth. They are feared all over the world, because they are strong and brutal. But at that time they will come from their land divided by rivers, and they will bring gifts to the LORD All-Powerful, who is worshiped on Mount Zion.

Egypt Will Be Punished

Isaiah 19 This is a message about Egypt: The LORD comes to Egypt, riding swiftly on a cloud.
The people are weak from fear.
Their idols tremble as he approaches and says,
²"I will punish Egypt with civil war--
neighbors, cities, and kingdoms will fight each other.

³"Egypt will be discouraged when I confuse their plans.
They will try to get advice from their idols,
from the spirits of the dead, and from fortunetellers.
⁴I will put the Egyptians under the power
of a cruel, heartless king.
I, the LORD All-Powerful, have promised this."

Trouble along the Nile

⁵The Nile River will dry up and become parched land.
⁶Its streams will stink, Egypt will have no water,
and the reeds and tall grass will dry up.
⁷Fields along the Nile will be completely barren;
every plant will disappear.

⁸Those who fish in the Nile will be discouraged and mourn.
⁹None of the cloth makers will know what to do,
and they will turn pale.
¹⁰Weavers will be confused;
paid workers will cry and mourn.

Egypt's Helpless Leaders

¹¹The king's officials in Zoan are foolish themselves
and give stupid advice.
How can they say to him, "We are very wise,
and our families go back to kings of long ago?"
¹²Where are those wise men now? If they can, let them say
what the LORD All-Powerful intends for Egypt.

¹³The royal officials in Zoan and in Memphis
are foolish and deceived.
The leaders in every state have given bad advice
to the nation.
¹⁴The LORD has confused Egypt;
its leaders have made it stagger and vomit like a drunkard.
¹⁵No one in Egypt can do a thing, no matter who they are.
¹⁶When the LORD All-Powerful punishes Egypt with his mighty arm, the Egyptians will become terribly weak and will tremble with fear. ¹⁷They will be so terrified of Judah that they will be frightened by the very mention of its name. This will happen because of what the LORD All-Powerful is planning against Egypt.

The LORD Will Bless Egypt, Assyria, and Israel

¹⁸The time is coming when Hebrew will be spoken in five Egyptian cities, and their people will become followers of the LORD. One of these cities will be called City of the Sun.
¹⁹In the heart of Egypt an altar will be set up for the LORD; at its border a shrine will be built to honor him. ²⁰These will remind the Egyptians that the LORD All-Powerful is with them. And when they are in trouble and ask for help, he will send someone to rescue them from their enemies. ²¹The LORD will show the Egyptians who he is, and they will know and worship the LORD. They will bring him sacrifices and offerings, and they will keep their promises to him. ²²After the LORD has punished Egypt, the people will turn to him. Then he will answer their prayers, and the Egyptians will be healed.
²³At that time a good road will run from Egypt to Assyria. The Egyptians and the Assyrians will travel back and forth from Egypt to Assyria, and they will worship together. ²⁴Israel will join with these two countries. They will be a blessing to everyone on earth, ²⁵then the LORD All-Powerful will bless them by saying,
"The Egyptians are my people. I created the Assyrians
and chose the Israelites."

Psalm 114
The LORD Works Wonders

¹God brought his people out of Egypt,
that land with a strange language.
²He made Judah his holy place and ruled over Israel.

³When the sea looked at God, it ran away,
and the Jordan River flowed upstream.
⁴The mountains and the hills skipped around like goats.

⁵Ask the sea why it ran away
or ask the Jordan why it flowed upstream.
⁶Ask the mountains and the hills
why they skipped like goats!

⁷Earth, you will tremble,
when the Lord God of Jacob comes near,
⁸because he turns solid rock into flowing streams
and pools of water.