Final Instructions and Greetings

¹²My friends, we ask you to be thoughtful of your leaders who work hard and tell you how to live for the Lord. ¹³Show them great respect and love because of their work. Try to get along with each other. ¹⁴My friends, we beg you to warn anyone who isn't living right. Encourage anyone who feels left out, help all who are weak, and be patient with everyone. ¹⁵Don't be hateful to people, just because they are hateful to you. Rather, be good to each other and to everyone else.
¹⁶Always be joyful ¹⁷and never stop praying. ¹⁸Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do.
¹⁹Don't turn away God's Spirit ²⁰or ignore prophecies. ²¹Put everything to the test. Accept what is good ²²and don't have anything to do with evil.
²³I pray that God, who gives peace, will make you completely holy. And may your spirit, soul, and body be kept healthy and faultless until our Lord Jesus Christ returns. ²⁴The one who chose you can be trusted, and he will do this.
²⁵Friends, please pray for us.
²⁶Give the Lord's followers a warm greeting.
²⁷In the name of the Lord I beg you to read this letter to all his followers.
²⁸I pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you!

The City of Tyre Will Be Punished

Isaiah 23 This is a message from distant islands
about the city of Tyre:
Cry, you seagoing ships!
Tyre and its houses lie in ruins.
²Mourn in silence, you shop owners of Sidon,
you people on the coast.
Your sailors crossed oceans, making your city rich.
³Your merchants sailed the seas, making you wealthy
by trading with nation after nation.
They brought back grain that grew along the Nile.
⁴Sidon, you are a mighty fortress built along the sea.
But you will be disgraced like a married woman
who never had children.

⁵When Egypt hears about Tyre, it will tremble.
⁶All of you along the coast had better cry
and sail far across the ocean.
⁷Can this be the happy city that has stood for centuries?
Its people have spread to distant lands;
⁸its merchants were kings honored all over the world.
Who planned to destroy Tyre?
⁹The LORD All-Powerful planned it
to bring shame and disgrace to those
who are honored by everyone on earth.
¹⁰People of Tyre, your harbor is destroyed!
You will have to become farmers
just like the Egyptians.

Tyre Will Be Forgotten

¹¹The LORD's hand has reached across the sea,
upsetting the nations.
He has given a command to destroy fortresses
in the land of Canaan.
¹²The LORD has said to the people of Sidon,
"Your celebrating is over-- you are crushed.
Even if you escape to Cyprus, you won't find peace."
¹³Look what the Assyrians have done to Babylonia! They have attacked, destroying every palace in the land. Now wild animals live among the ruins. ¹⁴Not a fortress will be left standing, so tell all the seagoing ships to mourn.
¹⁵The city of Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, which is the lifetime of a king. Then Tyre will be like that evil woman in the song:
¹⁶You're gone and forgotten, you evil woman!
So strut through the town,
singing and playing your favorite tune
to be remembered again.
¹⁷At the end of those seventy years, the LORD will let Tyre get back into business. The city will be like a woman who sells her body to everyone of every nation on earth, ¹⁸but none of what is earned will be kept in the city. That money will belong to the LORD, and it will be used to buy more than enough food and good clothes for those who worship the LORD.

The Earth Will Be Punished

Isaiah 24 The LORD is going to twist the earth out of shape and turn it into a desert. Everyone will be scattered, ²including ordinary people and priests, slaves and slave owners, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, the rich and the poor. ³The earth will be stripped bare and left that way. This is what the LORD has promised.
⁴The earth wilts away; its mighty leaders melt to nothing.
⁵The earth is polluted because its people
disobeyed the laws of God, breaking their agreement
that was to last forever.

⁶The earth is under a curse; its people are dying out
because of their sins.
⁷Grapevines have dried up: wine is almost gone--
mournful sounds are heard instead of joyful shouts.

⁸No one plays tambourines or stringed instruments;
all noisy celebrating has come to an end.
⁹They no longer sing as they drink their wine,
and it tastes sour.

¹⁰Towns are crushed and in chaos; houses are locked tight.
¹¹Happy times have disappeared from the earth,
and people shout in the streets, "We're out of wine!"
¹²Cities are destroyed; their gates are torn down.
¹³Nations will be stripped bare, like olive trees
or vineyards after the harvest season.

Praise the God of Justice

¹⁴People in the west shout;
they joyfully praise the majesty of the LORD.
¹⁵And so, everyone in the east and those on the islands
should praise the LORD, the God of Israel.
¹⁶From all over the world songs of praise are heard
for the God of justice.
But I feel awful, terribly miserable.
Can anyone be trusted? So many are treacherous!

There's No Escape

¹⁷Terror, traps, and pits are waiting for everyone.
¹⁸If you are terrified and run, you will fall into a pit;
if you crawl out of the pit, you will get caught in a trap.

The sky has split apart like a window thrown open.
The foundations of the earth have been shaken;
¹⁹the earth is shattered, ripped to pieces.
²⁰It staggers and shakes like a drunkard
or a hut in a windstorm.
It is burdened down with sin;
the earth will fall, never again to get up.

²¹On that day the LORD will punish
the powers in the heavens and the kings of the earth.
²²He will put them in a pit and keep them prisoner.
Then later on, he will punish them.
²³The moon and sun will both be embarrassed and ashamed.
The LORD All-Powerful will rule
on Mount Zion in Jerusalem,
where he will show its rulers his wonderful glory.

Psalm 116
When the LORD Saves You from Death

¹I love you, LORD! You answered my prayers.
²You paid attention to me,
and so I will pray to you as long as I live.
³Death attacked from all sides,
and I was captured by its painful chains.
But when I was really hurting, ⁴I prayed and said,
"LORD, please don't let me die!"

⁵You are kind, LORD, so good and merciful.
⁶You protect ordinary people,
and when I was helpless, you saved me
⁷and treated me so kindly
that I don't need to worry anymore.

⁸You, LORD, have saved my life from death,
my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
⁹Now I will walk at your side in this land of the living.
¹⁰I was faithful to you when I was suffering,
¹¹though in my confusion I said, "I can't trust anyone!"

¹²What must I give you, LORD, for being so good to me?
¹³I will pour out an offering of wine to you,
and I will pray in your name because you have saved me.
¹⁴I will keep my promise to you when your people meet.
¹⁵You are deeply concerned
when one of your loyal people faces death.

¹⁶I worship you, LORD, just as my mother did,
and you have rescued me from the chains of death.
¹⁷I will offer you a sacrifice to show how grateful I am,
and I will pray.
¹⁸I will keep my promise to you when your people ¹⁹gather
at your temple in Jerusalem.
Shout praises to the LORD!