Your Most Valuable Possession

מ Mem

⁹⁷ Oh, how I love your law!
  I meditate on it all day long.
⁹⁸ Your commands are always with me
  and make me wiser than my enemies.
⁹⁹ I have more insight than all my teachers,
  for I meditate on your statutes.
¹⁰⁰ I have more understanding than the elders,
  for I obey your precepts.
¹⁰¹ I have kept my feet from every evil path
  so that I might obey your word.
¹⁰² I have not departed from your laws,
  for you yourself have taught me.
¹⁰³ How sweet are your words to my taste,
  sweeter than honey to my mouth!
¹⁰⁴ I gain understanding from your precepts;
  therefore I hate every wrong path.

4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: ² Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage —with great patience and careful instruction. ³ For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴ They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ⁵ But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

⁶ For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸ Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day —and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Personal Remarks

⁹ Do your best to come to me quickly, ¹⁰ for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. ¹¹ Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. ¹² I sent Tychicus to Ephesus. ¹³ When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.

¹⁴ Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. ¹⁵ You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message.

¹⁶ At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. ¹⁷ But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. ¹⁸ The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Final Greetings

¹⁹ Greet Priscilla and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus. ²⁰ Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus ill in Miletus. ²¹ Do your best to get here before winter. Eubulus greets you, and so do Pudens, Linus, Claudia and all the brothers and sisters.

²² The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all.

¹⁵ “He made the earth by his power;
  he founded the world by his wisdom
  and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
¹⁶ When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar;
  he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain
  and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

¹⁷ “Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;
  every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.
The images he makes are a fraud;
  they have no breath in them.
¹⁸ They are worthless, the objects of mockery;
  when their judgment comes, they will perish.
¹⁹ He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these,
  for he is the Maker of all things,
including the people of his inheritance —
  the Lord Almighty is his name.

²⁰ “You are my war club,
  my weapon for battle—
with you I shatter nations,
  with you I destroy kingdoms,
²¹ with you I shatter horse and rider,
  with you I shatter chariot and driver,
²² with you I shatter man and woman,
  with you I shatter old man and youth,
  with you I shatter young man and young woman,
²³ with you I shatter shepherd and flock,
  with you I shatter farmer and oxen,
  with you I shatter governors and officials.

²⁴ “Before your eyes I will repay Babylon and all who live in Babylonia for all the wrong they have done in Zion,” declares the Lord.

²⁵ “I am against you, you destroying mountain,
  you who destroy the whole earth,”
   declares the Lord.
“I will stretch out my hand against you,
  roll you off the cliffs,
  and make you a burned-out mountain.
²⁶ No rock will be taken from you for a cornerstone,
  nor any stone for a foundation,
  for you will be desolate forever,”
   declares the Lord.

²⁷ “Lift up a banner in the land!
  Blow the trumpet among the nations!
Prepare the nations for battle against her;
  summon against her these kingdoms:
  Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a commander against her;
  send up horses like a swarm of locusts.
²⁸ Prepare the nations for battle against her—
  the kings of the Medes,
their governors and all their officials,
  and all the countries they rule.
²⁹ The land trembles and writhes,
  for the Lord’s purposes against Babylon stand—
to lay waste the land of Babylon
  so that no one will live there.
³⁰ Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting;
  they remain in their strongholds.
Their strength is exhausted;
  they have become weaklings.
Her dwellings are set on fire;
  the bars of her gates are broken.
³¹ One courier follows another
  and messenger follows messenger
to announce to the king of Babylon
  that his entire city is captured,
³² the river crossings seized,
  the marshes set on fire,
  and the soldiers terrified. ”

³³ This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says:

“Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor
  at the time it is trampled;
  the time to harvest her will soon come. ”

³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured us,
  he has thrown us into confusion,
  he has made us an empty jar.
Like a serpent he has swallowed us
  and filled his stomach with our delicacies,
  and then has spewed us out.
³⁵ May the violence done to our flesh be on Babylon,”
  say the inhabitants of Zion.
“May our blood be on those who live in Babylonia,”
  says Jerusalem.

³⁶ Therefore this is what the Lord says:

“See, I will defend your cause
  and avenge you;
I will dry up her sea
  and make her springs dry.
³⁷ Babylon will be a heap of ruins,
  a haunt of jackals,
an object of horror and scorn,
  a place where no one lives.
³⁸ Her people all roar like young lions,
  they growl like lion cubs.
³⁹ But while they are aroused,
  I will set out a feast for them
and make them drunk,
  so that they shout with laughter—
then sleep forever and not awake,”
   declares the Lord.
⁴⁰ “I will bring them down
  like lambs to the slaughter,
  like rams and goats.

⁴¹ “How Sheshak will be captured,
  the boast of the whole earth seized!
How desolate Babylon will be
  among the nations!
⁴² The sea will rise over Babylon;
  its roaring waves will cover her.
⁴³ Her towns will be desolate,
  a dry and desert land,
a land where no one lives,
  through which no one travels.
⁴⁴ I will punish Bel in Babylon
  and make him spew out what he has swallowed.
The nations will no longer stream to him.
  And the wall of Babylon will fall.

⁴⁵ “Come out of her, my people!
  Run for your lives!
  Run from the fierce anger of the Lord.
⁴⁶ Do not lose heart or be afraid
  when rumors are heard in the land;
one rumor comes this year, another the next,
  rumors of violence in the land
  and of ruler against ruler.
⁴⁷ For the time will surely come
  when I will punish the idols of Babylon;
her whole land will be disgraced
  and her slain will all lie fallen within her.
⁴⁸ Then heaven and earth and all that is in them
  will shout for joy over Babylon,
for out of the north
  destroyers will attack her,”
   declares the Lord.

⁴⁹ “Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain,
  just as the slain in all the earth
  have fallen because of Babylon.
⁵⁰ You who have escaped the sword,
  leave and do not linger!
Remember the Lord in a distant land,
  and call to mind Jerusalem.”

⁵¹ “We are disgraced,
  for we have been insulted
and shame covers our faces,
  because foreigners have entered
the holy places of the Lord’s house.”

⁵² “But days are coming,” declares the Lord,
  “when I will punish her idols,
and throughout her land
  the wounded will groan.
⁵³ Even if Babylon ascends to the heavens
  and fortifies her lofty stronghold,
I will send destroyers against her,”
   declares the Lord.

⁵⁴ “The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,
  the sound of great destruction
  from the land of the Babylonians.
⁵⁵ The Lord will destroy Babylon;
  he will silence her noisy din.
Waves of enemies will rage like great waters;
  the roar of their voices will resound.
⁵⁶ A destroyer will come against Babylon;
  her warriors will be captured,
  and their bows will be broken.
For the Lord is a God of retribution;
  he will repay in full.
⁵⁷ I will make her officials and wise men drunk,
  her governors, officers and warriors as well;
they will sleep forever and not awake,”
  declares the King, whose name is the Lord Almighty.

⁵⁸ This is what the Lord Almighty says:

“Babylon’s thick wall will be leveled
  and her high gates set on fire;
the peoples exhaust themselves for nothing,
  the nations’ labour is only fuel for the flames.”

⁵⁹ This is the message Jeremiah the prophet gave to the staff officer Seraiah son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with Zedekiah king of Judah in the fourth year of his reign. ⁶⁰ Jeremiah had written on a scroll about all the disasters that would come upon Babylon—all that had been recorded concerning Babylon. ⁶¹ He said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud. ⁶² Then say, ‘Lord, you have said you will destroy this place, so that neither people nor animals will live in it; it will be desolate forever.’ ⁶³ When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates. ⁶⁴ Then say, ‘So will Babylon sink to rise no more because of the disaster I will bring on her. And her people will fall.’”