Paul's Desire to Visit Them Again

1 Thessalonians 2 ¹⁷As for us, friends, when we were separated from you for a little while--not in our thoughts, of course, but only in body--how we missed you and how hard we tried to see you again! ¹⁸We wanted to return to you. I myself tried to go back more than once, but Satan would not let us. ¹⁹After all, it is you--you, no less than others!--who are our hope, our joy, and our reason for boasting of our victory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes. ²⁰Indeed, you are our pride and our joy!
1 Thessalonians 3 Finally, we could not bear it any longer. So we decided to stay on alone in Athens ²while we sent Timothy, our brother who works with us for God in preaching the Good News about Christ. We sent him to strengthen you and help your faith, ³so that none of you should turn back because of these persecutions. You yourselves know that such persecutions are part of God's will for us. ⁴For while we were still with you, we told you ahead of time that we were going to be persecuted; and as you well know, that is exactly what happened. ⁵That is why I had to send Timothy. I could not bear it any longer, so I sent him to find out about your faith. Surely it could not be that the Devil had tempted you and all our work had been for nothing!
⁶Now Timothy has come back, and he has brought us the welcome news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always think well of us and that you want to see us just as much as we want to see you. ⁷So, in all our trouble and suffering we have been encouraged about you, friends. It was your faith that encouraged us, ⁸because now we really live if you stand firm in your life in union with the Lord. ⁹Now we can give thanks to our God for you. We thank him for the joy we have in his presence because of you. ¹⁰Day and night we ask him with all our heart to let us see you personally and supply what is needed in your faith.
¹¹May our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus prepare the way for us to come to you! ¹²May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow more and more and become as great as our love for you. ¹³In this way he will strengthen you, and you will be perfect and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all who belong to him.

God Will Punish Syria and Israel

Isaiah 17 The LORD said, "Damascus will not be a city any longer; it will be only a pile of ruins. ²The cities of Syria will be deserted forever. They will be a pasture for sheep and cattle, and no one will drive them away. ³Israel will be defenseless, and Damascus will lose its independence. Those Syrians who survive will be in disgrace like the people of Israel. I, the LORD Almighty, have spoken."
⁴The LORD said, "A day is coming when Israel's greatness will come to an end, and its wealth will be replaced by poverty. ⁵Israel will be like a field where the grain has been cut and harvested, as desolate as a field in Rephaim Valley when it has been picked bare. ⁶Only a few people will survive, and Israel will be like an olive tree from which all the olives have been picked except two or three at the very top, or a few that are left on the lower branches. I, the LORD God of Israel, have spoken."
⁷When that day comes, people will turn for help to their Creator, the holy God of Israel. ⁸They will no longer rely on the altars they made with their own hands, or trust in their own handiwork--symbols of the goddess Asherah and altars for burning incense.
⁹When that day comes, well-defended cities will be deserted and left in ruins like the cities that the Hivites and the Amorites abandoned as they fled from the people of Israel.
¹⁰Israel, you have forgotten the God who rescues you and protects you like a mighty rock. Instead, you plant sacred gardens in order to worship a foreign god. ¹¹But even if they sprouted and blossomed the very morning you planted them, there would still be no harvest. There would be only trouble and incurable pain.

Enemy Nations Are Defeated

¹²Powerful nations are in commotion with a sound like the roar of the sea, like the crashing of huge waves. ¹³The nations advance like rushing waves, but God reprimands them and they retreat, driven away like dust on a mountainside, like straw in a whirlwind. ¹⁴At evening they cause terror, but by morning they are gone. That is the fate of everyone who plunders our land.

God Will Punish Ethiopia

Isaiah 18 Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia there is a land where the sound of wings is heard. ²From that land ambassadors come down the Nile in boats made of reeds. Go back home, swift messengers! Take a message back to your land divided by rivers, to your strong and powerful nation, to your tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world.
³Listen, everyone who lives on earth! Look for a signal flag to be raised on the mountaintops! Listen for the blowing of the bugle! ⁴The LORD said to me, "I will look down from heaven as quietly as the dew forms in the warm nights of harvest time, as serenely as the sun shines in the heat of the day. ⁵Before the grapes are gathered, when the blossoms have all fallen and the grapes are ripening, the enemy will destroy the Ethiopians as easily as a knife cuts branches from a vine. ⁶The corpses of their soldiers will be left exposed to the birds and the wild animals. In summer the birds will feed on them, and in winter, the animals."
⁷A time is coming when the LORD Almighty will receive offerings from this land divided by rivers, this strong and powerful nation, this tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world. They will come to Mount Zion, where the LORD Almighty is worshiped.

God Will Punish Egypt

Isaiah 19 This is a message about Egypt.
The LORD is coming to Egypt, riding swiftly on a cloud. The Egyptian idols tremble before him, and the people of Egypt lose their courage. ²The LORD says, "I will stir up civil war in Egypt and turn brother against brother and neighbor against neighbor. Rival cities will fight each other, and rival kings will struggle for power. ³I am going to frustrate the plans of the Egyptians and destroy their morale. They will ask their idols to help them, and they will go and consult mediums and ask the spirits of the dead for advice. ⁴I will hand the Egyptians over to a tyrant, to a cruel king who will rule them. I, the LORD Almighty, have spoken."
⁵The water will be low in the Nile, and the river will gradually dry up. ⁶The channels of the river will stink as they slowly go dry. Reeds and rushes will wither, ⁷and all the crops planted along the banks of the Nile will dry up and be blown away. ⁸Everyone who earns a living by fishing in the Nile will groan and cry; their hooks and their nets will be useless. ⁹Those who make linen cloth will be in despair; ¹⁰weavers and skilled workers will be broken and depressed.
¹¹The leaders of the city of Zoan are fools! Egypt's wisest people give stupid advice! How do they dare to tell the king that they are successors to the ancient scholars and kings? ¹²King of Egypt, where are those clever advisers of yours? Perhaps they can tell you what plans the LORD Almighty has for Egypt. ¹³The leaders of Zoan and Memphis are fools. They were supposed to lead the nation, but they have misled it. ¹⁴The LORD has made them give confusing advice. As a result, Egypt does everything wrong and staggers like a drunk slipping on his own vomit. ¹⁵No one in Egypt, rich or poor, important or unknown, can offer help.

Egypt Will Worship the LORD

¹⁶A time is coming when the people of Egypt will be as timid as women. They will tremble in terror when they see that the LORD Almighty has stretched out his hand to punish them. ¹⁷The people of Egypt will be terrified of Judah every time they are reminded of the fate that the LORD Almighty has prepared for them.
¹⁸When that time comes, the Hebrew language will be spoken in five Egyptian cities. The people there will take their oaths in the name of the LORD Almighty. One of the cities will be called, "City of the Sun."
¹⁹When that time comes, there will be an altar to the LORD in the land of Egypt and a stone pillar dedicated to him at the Egyptian border. ²⁰They will be symbols of the LORD Almighty's presence in Egypt. When the people there are oppressed and call out to the LORD for help, he will send someone to rescue them. ²¹The LORD will reveal himself to the Egyptian people, and then they will acknowledge and worship him, and bring him sacrifices and offerings. They will make solemn promises to him and do what they promise. ²²The LORD will punish the Egyptians, but then he will heal them. They will turn to him, and he will hear their prayers and heal them.
²³When that time comes, there will be a highway between Egypt and Assyria. The people of these two countries will travel back and forth between them, and the two nations will worship together. ²⁴When that time comes, Israel will rank with Egypt and Assyria, and these three nations will be a blessing to all the world. ²⁵The LORD Almighty will bless them and say, "I will bless you, Egypt, my people; you, Assyria, whom I created; and you, Israel, my chosen people."

A Passover Song

Psalm 114 When the people of Israel left Egypt,
when Jacob's descendants left that foreign land,
²Judah became the Lord's holy people,
Israel became his own possession.

³The Red Sea looked and ran away;
the Jordan River stopped flowing.
⁴The mountains skipped like goats;
the hills jumped around like lambs.

⁵What happened, Sea, to make you run away?
And you, O Jordan, why did you stop flowing?
⁶You mountains, why did you skip like goats?
You hills, why did you jump around like lambs?

⁷Tremble, earth, at the Lord's coming,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
⁸who changes rocks into pools of water
and solid cliffs into flowing springs.