Paul and the False Apostles

2 Corinthians 11 I wish you would tolerate me, even when I am a bit foolish. Please do! ²I am jealous for you, just as God is; you are like a pure virgin whom I have promised in marriage to one man only, Christ himself. ³I am afraid that your minds will be corrupted and that you will abandon your full and pure devotion to Christ--in the same way that Eve was deceived by the snake's clever lies. ⁴For you gladly tolerate anyone who comes to you and preaches a different Jesus, not the one we preached; and you accept a spirit and a gospel completely different from the Spirit and the gospel you received from us!
⁵I do not think that I am the least bit inferior to those very special so-called "apostles" of yours! ⁶Perhaps I am an amateur in speaking, but certainly not in knowledge; we have made this clear to you at all times and in all conditions.
⁷I did not charge you a thing when I preached the Good News of God to you; I humbled myself in order to make you important. Was that wrong of me? ⁸While I was working among you, I was paid by other churches. I was robbing them, so to speak, in order to help you. ⁹And during the time I was with you I did not bother you for help when I needed money; the believers who came from Macedonia brought me everything I needed. As in the past, so in the future: I will never be a burden to you! ¹⁰By Christ's truth in me, I promise that this boast of mine will not be silenced anywhere in all of Achaia. ¹¹Do I say this because I don't love you? God knows I love you!
¹²I will go on doing what I am doing now, in order to keep those other "apostles" from having any reason for boasting and saying that they work in the same way that we do. ¹³Those men are not true apostles--they are false apostles, who lie about their work and disguise themselves to look like real apostles of Christ. ¹⁴Well, no wonder! Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light! ¹⁵So it is no great thing if his servants disguise themselves to look like servants of righteousness. In the end they will get exactly what their actions deserve.

Paul's Sufferings as an Apostle

¹⁶I repeat: no one should think that I am a fool. But if you do, at least accept me as a fool, just so I will have a little to boast of. ¹⁷Of course what I am saying now is not what the Lord would have me say; in this matter of boasting I am really talking like a fool. ¹⁸But since there are so many who boast for merely human reasons, I will do the same. ¹⁹You yourselves are so wise, and so you gladly tolerate fools! ²⁰You tolerate anyone who orders you around or takes advantage of you or traps you or looks down on you or slaps you in the face. ²¹I am ashamed to admit that we were too timid to do those things!
But if anyone dares to boast about something--I am talking like a fool--I will be just as daring. ²²Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I. ²³Are they Christ's servants? I sound like a madman--but I am a better servant than they are! I have worked much harder, I have been in prison more times, I have been whipped much more, and I have been near death more often. ²⁴Five times I was given the thirty-nine lashes by the Jews; ²⁵three times I was whipped by the Romans; and once I was stoned. I have been in three shipwrecks, and once I spent twenty-four hours in the water. ²⁶In my many travels I have been in danger from floods and from robbers, in danger from my own people and from Gentiles; there have been dangers in the cities, dangers in the wilds, dangers on the high seas, and dangers from false friends. ²⁷There has been work and toil; often I have gone without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty; I have often been without enough food, shelter, or clothing. ²⁸And not to mention other things, every day I am under the pressure of my concern for all the churches. ²⁹When someone is weak, then I feel weak too; when someone is led into sin, I am filled with distress.
³⁰If I must boast, I will boast about things that show how weak I am. ³¹The God and Father of the Lord Jesus--blessed be his name forever!--knows that I am not lying. ³²When I was in Damascus, the governor under King Aretas placed guards at the city gates to arrest me. ³³But I was let down in a basket through an opening in the wall and escaped from him.

The Fall of Jerusalem
(2 Chronicles 36.13-21; Jeremiah 52.3b -11)

2 Kings 25 Zedekiah rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, and so Nebuchadnezzar came with all his army and attacked Jerusalem on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign. They set up camp outside the city, built siege walls around it, ²and kept it under siege until Zedekiah's eleventh year. ³On the ninth day of the fourth month of that same year, when the famine was so bad that the people had nothing left to eat, ⁴the city walls were broken through. Although the Babylonians were surrounding the city, all the soldiers escaped during the night. They left by way of the royal garden, went through the gateway connecting the two walls, and fled in the direction of the Jordan Valley. ⁵But the Babylonian army pursued King Zedekiah, captured him in the plains near Jericho, and all his soldiers deserted him. ⁶Zedekiah was taken to King Nebuchadnezzar, who was in the city of Riblah, and there Nebuchadnezzar passed sentence on him. ⁷While Zedekiah was looking on, his sons were put to death; then Nebuchadnezzar had Zedekiah's eyes put out, placed him in chains, and took him to Babylon.

The Destruction of the Temple
(Jeremiah 52.12-33)

⁸On the seventh day of the fifth month of the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, Nebuzaradan, adviser to the king and commander of his army, entered Jerusalem. ⁹He burned down the Temple, the palace, and the houses of all the important people in Jerusalem, ¹⁰and his soldiers tore down the city walls. ¹¹Then Nebuzaradan took away to Babylonia the people who were left in the city, the remaining skilled workers, and those who had deserted to the Babylonians. ¹²But he left in Judah some of the poorest people, who owned no property, and put them to work in the vineyards and fields.
¹³The Babylonians broke in pieces the bronze columns and the carts that were in the Temple, together with the large bronze tank, and they took all the bronze to Babylon. ¹⁴They also took away the shovels and the ash containers used in cleaning the altar, the tools used in tending the lamps, the bowls used for catching the blood from the sacrifices, the bowls used for burning incense, and all the other bronze articles used in the Temple service. ¹⁵They took away everything that was made of gold or silver, including the small bowls and the pans used for carrying live coals. ¹⁶The bronze objects that King Solomon had made for the Temple--the two columns, the carts, and the large tank--were too heavy to weigh. ¹⁷The two columns were identical: each one was 27 feet high, with a bronze capital on top, 4½ feet high. All around each capital was a bronze grillwork decorated with pomegranates made of bronze.

The People of Judah Are Taken to Babylonia
(Jeremiah 52.24 -27)

¹⁸In addition, Nebuzaradan, the commanding officer, took away as prisoners Seraiah the High Priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three other important Temple officials. ¹⁹From the city he took the officer who had been in command of the troops, five of the king's personal advisers who were still in the city, the commander's assistant, who was in charge of military records, and sixty other important men. ²⁰Nebuzaradan took them to the king of Babylonia, who was in the city of Riblah ²¹in the territory of Hamath. There the king had them beaten and put to death.
So the people of Judah were carried away from their land into exile.

Gedaliah, Governor of Judah
(Jeremiah 40.7-9; 41.1-3)

²²King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia made Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, governor of Judah, and placed him in charge of all those who had not been taken away to Babylonia. ²³When the Judean officers and soldiers who had not surrendered heard about this, they joined Gedaliah at Mizpah. These officers were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth from the town of Netophah, and Jezaniah from Maacah. ²⁴Gedaliah said to them, "I give you my word that there is no need for you to be afraid of the Babylonian officials. Settle in this land, serve the king of Babylonia, and all will go well with you."
²⁵But in the seventh month of that year, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama, a member of the royal family, went to Mizpah with ten men, attacked Gedaliah, and killed him. He also killed the Israelites and Babylonians who were there with him. ²⁶Then all the Israelites, rich and poor alike, together with the army officers, left and went to Egypt, because they were afraid of the Babylonians.

Jehoiachin Is Released from Prison
(Jeremiah 52.31-34)

²⁷In the year that Evilmerodach became king of Babylonia, he showed kindness to King Jehoiachin of Judah by releasing him from prison. This happened on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin had been taken away as prisoner. ²⁸Evilmerodach treated him kindly and gave him a position of greater honor than he gave the other kings who were exiles with him in Babylonia. ²⁹So Jehoiachin was permitted to change from his prison clothes and to dine at the king's table for the rest of his life. ³⁰Each day, for as long as he lived, he was given a regular allowance for his needs.

The LORD's Answer to Habakkuk

Habakkuk 2 I will climb my watchtower and wait to see what the LORD will tell me to say and what answer he will give to my complaint.
²The LORD gave me this answer: "Write down clearly on tablets what I reveal to you, so that it can be read at a glance. ³Put it in writing, because it is not yet time for it to come true. But the time is coming quickly, and what I show you will come true. It may seem slow in coming, but wait for it; it will certainly take place, and it will not be delayed. ⁴And this is the message: 'Those who are evil will not survive, but those who are righteous will live because they are faithful to God.'"

Doom on the Unrighteous

⁵Wealth is deceitful. Greedy people are proud and restless--like death itself they are never satisfied. That is why they conquer nation after nation for themselves. ⁶The conquered people will taunt their conquerors and show their scorn for them. They will say, "You take what isn't yours, but you are doomed! How long will you go on getting rich by forcing your debtors to pay up?"
⁷But before you know it, you that have conquered others will be in debt yourselves and be forced to pay interest. Enemies will come and make you tremble. They will plunder you! ⁸You have plundered the people of many nations, but now those who have survived will plunder you because of the murders you have committed and because of your violence against the people of the world and its cities.
⁹You are doomed! You have made your family rich with what you took by violence, and have tried to make your own home safe from harm and danger! ¹⁰But your schemes have brought shame on your family; by destroying many nations you have only brought ruin on yourself. ¹¹Even the stones of the walls cry out against you, and the rafters echo the cry.
¹²You are doomed! You founded a city on crime and built it up by murder. ¹³The nations you conquered wore themselves out in useless labor, and all they have built goes up in flames. The LORD Almighty has done this. ¹⁴But the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the LORD's glory as the seas are full of water.
¹⁵You are doomed! In your fury you humiliated and disgraced your neighbors; you made them stagger as though they were drunk. ¹⁶You in turn will be covered with shame instead of honor. You yourself will drink and stagger. The LORD will make you drink your own cup of punishment, and your honor will be turned to disgrace. ¹⁷You have cut down the forests of Lebanon; now you will be cut down. You killed its animals; now animals will terrify you. This will happen because of the murders you have committed and because of your violence against the people of the world and its cities.
¹⁸What's the use of an idol? It is only something that a human being has made, and it tells you nothing but lies. What good does it do for its maker to trust it--a god that can't even talk! ¹⁹You are doomed! You say to a piece of wood, "Wake up!" or to a block of stone, "Get up!" Can an idol reveal anything to you? It may be covered with silver and gold, but there is no life in it.
²⁰The LORD is in his holy Temple; let everyone on earth be silent in his presence.