Song of Solomon 8

1 I wish you'd been my twin brother, sharing with me the breasts of my mother, Playing outside in the street, kissing in plain view of everyone, and no one thinking anything of it.2 I'd take you by the hand and bring you home where I was raised by my mother. You'd drink my wine and kiss my cheeks.

3 Imagine! His left hand cradling my head, his right arm around my waist!4 Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem: Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is ripe-and you're ready. The Chorus

The Chorus

5 Who is this I see coming up from the country, arm in arm with her lover? I found you under the apricot tree, and woke you up to love. Your mother went into labor under that tree, and under that very tree she bore you.

The Woman

6 Hang my locket around your neck, wear my ring on your finger. Love is invincible facing danger and death. Passion laughs at the terrors of hell. The fire of love stops at nothing-it sweeps everything before it.7 Flood waters can't drown love, torrents of rain can't put it out. Love can't be bought, love can't be sold-it's not to be found in the marketplace.

8 My brothers used to worry about me: "Our little sister has no breasts. What shall we do with our little sister when men come asking for her?9 She's a virgin and vulnerable, and we'll protect her. If they think she's a wall, we'll top it with barbed wire. If they think she's a door, we'll barricade it."

10 Dear brothers, I'm a walled-in virgin still, but my breasts are full-And when my lover sees me, he knows he'll soon be satisfied.

The Man

11 King Solomon may have vast vineyards in lush, fertile country, Where he hires others to work the ground. People pay anything to get in on that bounty.12 But my vineyard is all mine, and I'm keeping it to myself. You can have your vast vineyards, Solomon, you and your greedy guests!

13 Oh, lady of the gardens, my friends are with me listening. Let me hear your voice!

The Woman

14 Run to me, dear lover. Come like a gazelle. Leap like a wild stag on the spice mountains.

Isaiah 1

Messages of Judgment

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1 The vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw regarding Judah and Jerusalem during the times of the kings of Judah: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.

2 Heaven and earth, you're the jury. Listen to God's case: "I had children and raised them well, and they turned on me.3 The ox knows who's boss, the mule knows the hand that feeds him, But not Israel. My people don't know up from down.4 Shame! Misguided God-dropouts, staggering under their guilt-baggage, Gang of miscreants, band of vandals-My people have walked out on me, their God, turned their backs on The Holy of Israel, walked off and never looked back.

5 "Why bother even trying to do anything with you when you just keep to your bullheaded ways? You keep beating your heads against brick walls. Everything within you protests against you.6 From the bottom of your feet to the top of your head, nothing's working right. Wounds and bruises and running sores-untended, unwashed, unbandaged.7 Your country is laid waste, your cities burned down. Your land is destroyed by outsiders while you watch, reduced to rubble by barbarians.8 Daughter Zion is deserted-like a tumbledown shack on a dead-end street, Like a tarpaper shanty on the wrong side of the tracks, like a sinking ship abandoned by the rats.9 If God-of-the-Angel-Armies hadn't left us a few survivors, we'd be as desolate as Sodom, doomed just like Gomorrah.

10 "Listen to my Message, you Sodom-schooled leaders. Receive God's revelation, you Gomorrah-schooled people.

11 "Why this frenzy of sacrifices?" God's asking. "Don't you think I've had my fill of burnt sacrifices, rams and plump grain-fed calves? Don't you think I've had my fill of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?12 When you come before me, who ever gave you the idea of acting like this, Running here and there, doing this and that-all this sheer commotion in the place provided for worship?

13 "Quit your worship charades. I can't stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings-meetings, meetings, meetings-I can't stand one more!14 Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You've worn me out! I'm sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning.15 When you put on your next prayer-performance, I'll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I'll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you've been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.16 Go home and wash up. Clean up your act. Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings so I don't have to look at them any longer. Say no to wrong.17 Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless. Let's Argue This Out

Let's Argue This Out

18 "Come. Sit down. Let's argue this out." This is God's Message: "If your sins are blood-red, they'll be snow-white. If they're red like crimson, they'll be like wool.19 If you'll willingly obey, you'll feast like kings.20 But if you're willful and stubborn, you'll die like dogs." That's right. God says so. Those Who Walk Out on God

Those Who Walk Out on God

21 Oh! Can you believe it? The chaste city has become a whore! She was once all justice, everyone living as good neighbors, And now they're all at one another's throats.22 Your coins are all counterfeits. Your wine is watered down.23 Your leaders are turncoats who keep company with crooks. They sell themselves to the highest bidder and grab anything not nailed down. They never stand up for the homeless, never stick up for the defenseless.

24 This Decree, therefore, of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the Strong One of Israel: "This is it! I'll get my oppressors off my back. I'll get back at my enemies.25 I'll give you the back of my hand, purge the junk from your life, clean you up.26 I'll set honest judges and wise counselors among you just like it was back in the beginning. Then you'll be renamed City-That-Treats-People-Right, the True-Blue City."27 God's right ways will put Zion right again. God's right actions will restore her penitents.28 But it's curtains for rebels and God-traitors, a dead end for those who walk out on God.29 "Your dalliances in those oak grove shrines will leave you looking mighty foolish, All that fooling around in god and goddess gardens that you thought was the latest thing.30 You'll end up like an oak tree with all its leaves falling off, Like an unwatered garden, withered and brown.31 'The Big Man' will turn out to be dead bark and twigs, and his 'work,' the spark that starts the fire That exposes man and work both as nothing but cinders and smoke."

Isaiah 2

Climb God's Mountain

1 The Message Isaiah got regarding Judah and Jerusalem:2 There's a day coming when the mountain of God's House Will be The Mountain-solid, towering over all mountains. All nations will river toward it, people from all over set out for it.3 They'll say, "Come, let's climb God's Mountain, go to the House of the God of Jacob. He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we're made." Zion's the source of the revelation. God's Message comes from Jerusalem.4 He'll settle things fairly between nations. He'll make things right between many peoples. They'll turn their swords into shovels, their spears into hoes. No more will nation fight nation; they won't play war anymore.5 Come, family of Jacob, let's live in the light of God.

6 God, you've walked out on your family Jacob because their world is full of hokey religion, Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus,7 a world rolling in wealth, Stuffed with things, no end to its machines and gadgets,8 And gods-gods of all sorts and sizes. These people make their own gods and worship what they make.9 A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter. Don't bother with them! They're not worth forgiving! Pretentious Egos Brought Down to Earth

Pretentious Egos Brought Down to Earth

10 Head for the hills, hide in the caves From the terror of God, from his dazzling presence.

11 People with a big head are headed for a fall, pretentious egos brought down a peg. It's God alone at front-and-center on the Day we're talking about,12 The Day that God-of-the-Angel-Armies is matched against all big-talking rivals, against all swaggering big names;13 Against all giant sequoias hugely towering, and against the expansive chestnut;14 Against Kilimanjaro and Annapurna, against the ranges of Alps and Andes;15 Against every soaring skyscraper, against all proud obelisks and statues;16 Against ocean-going luxury liners, against elegant three-masted schooners.17 The swelled big heads will be punctured bladders, the pretentious egos brought down to earth, Leaving God alone at front-and-center on the Day we're talking about.

18 And all those sticks and stones dressed up to look like gods will be gone for good.

19 Clamber into caves in the cliffs, duck into any hole you can find. Hide from the terror of God, from his dazzling presence, When he assumes his full stature on earth, towering and terrifying.

20 On that Day men and women will take the sticks and stones They've decked out in gold and silver to look like gods and then worshiped, And they will dump them in any ditch or gully,21 Then run for rock caves and cliff hideouts To hide from the terror of God, from his dazzling presence, When he assumes his full stature on earth, towering and terrifying.

22 Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans, so full of themselves, so full of hot air! Can't you see there's nothing to them?