Fix Your Thoughts

צ Tsadhe

¹³⁷ You are righteous, Lord,
  and your laws are right.
¹³⁸ The statutes you have laid down are righteous;
  they are fully trustworthy.
¹³⁹ My zeal wears me out,
  for my enemies ignore your words.
¹⁴⁰ Your promises have been thoroughly tested,
  and your servant loves them.
¹⁴¹ Though I am lowly and despised,
  I do not forget your precepts.
¹⁴² Your righteousness is everlasting
  and your law is true.
¹⁴³ Trouble and distress have come upon me,
  but your commands give me delight.
¹⁴⁴ Your statutes are always righteous;
  give me understanding that I may live.

Jesus Greater Than Moses

3 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. ² He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. ³ Jesus has been found worthy of greater honour than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honour than the house itself. ⁴ For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. ⁵ “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. ⁶ But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

Warning Against Unbelief

⁷ So, as the Holy Spirit says:

  “Today, if you hear his voice,
   ⁸ do not harden your hearts
  as you did in the rebellion,
   during the time of testing in the wilderness,
  ⁹ where your ancestors tested and tried me,
   though for forty years they saw what I did.
  ¹⁰ That is why I was angry with that generation;
   I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
   and they have not known my ways.’
  ¹¹ So I declared on oath in my anger,
   ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today’, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ¹⁴ We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. ¹⁵ As has just been said:

  “Today, if you hear his voice,
   do not harden your hearts
   as you did in the rebellion.”

¹⁶ Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? ¹⁷ And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? ¹⁹ So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

An Invasion of Locusts

  ² Hear this, you elders;
   listen, all who live in the land.
  Has anything like this ever happened in your days
   or in the days of your ancestors?
  ³ Tell it to your children,
   and let your children tell it to their children,
   and their children to the next generation.
  ⁴ What the locust swarm has left
   the great locusts have eaten;
  what the great locusts have left
   the young locusts have eaten;
  what the young locusts have left
   other locusts have eaten.

  ⁵ Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
   Wail, all you drinkers of wine;
  wail because of the new wine,
   for it has been snatched from your lips.
  ⁶ A nation has invaded my land,
   a mighty army without number;
  it has the teeth of a lion,
   the fangs of a lioness.
  ⁷ It has laid waste my vines
   and ruined my fig trees.
  It has stripped off their bark
   and thrown it away,
   leaving their branches white.

  ⁸ Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth
   grieving for the betrothed of her youth.
  ⁹ Grain offerings and drink offerings
   are cut off from the house of the Lord.
  The priests are in mourning,
   those who minister before the Lord.
  ¹⁰ The fields are ruined,
   the ground is dried up;
  the grain is destroyed,
   the new wine is dried up,
   the olive oil fails.

  ¹¹ Despair, you farmers,
   wail, you vine growers;
  grieve for the wheat and the barley,
   because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
  ¹² The vine is dried up
   and the fig tree is withered;
  the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree—
   all the trees of the field—are dried up.
  Surely the people’s joy
   is withered away.

A Call to Lamentation

  ¹³ Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn;
   wail, you who minister before the altar.
  Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
   you who minister before my God;
  for the grain offerings and drink offerings
   are withheld from the house of your God.
  ¹⁴ Declare a holy fast;
   call a sacred assembly.
  Summon the elders
   and all who live in the land
  to the house of the Lord your God,
   and cry out to the Lord.

  ¹⁵ Alas for that day!
   For the day of the Lord is near;
   it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

  ¹⁶ Has not the food been cut off
   before our very eyes—
  joy and gladness
   from the house of our God?
  ¹⁷ The seeds are shriveled
   beneath the clods.
  The storehouses are in ruins,
   the granaries have been broken down,
   for the grain has dried up.
  ¹⁸ How the cattle moan!
   The herds mill about
  because they have no pasture;
   even the flocks of sheep are suffering.

  ¹⁹ To you, Lord, I call,
   for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness
   and flames have burned up all the trees of the field.
  ²⁰ Even the wild animals pant for you;
   the streams of water have dried up
   and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

An Army of Locusts

  2 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
   sound the alarm on my holy hill.

  Let all who live in the land tremble,
   for the day of the Lord is coming.
  It is close at hand —
   ² a day of darkness and gloom,
   a day of clouds and blackness.
  Like dawn spreading across the mountains
   a large and mighty army comes,
  such as never was in ancient times
   nor ever will be in ages to come.

  ³ Before them fire devours,
   behind them a flame blazes.
  Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,
   behind them, a desert waste —
   nothing escapes them.
  ⁴ They have the appearance of horses;
   they gallop along like cavalry.
  ⁵ With a noise like that of chariots
   they leap over the mountaintops,
  like a crackling fire consuming stubble,
   like a mighty army drawn up for battle.

  ⁶ At the sight of them, nations are in anguish;
   every face turns pale.
  ⁷ They charge like warriors;
   they scale walls like soldiers.
  They all march in line,
   not swerving from their course.
  ⁸ They do not jostle each other;
   each marches straight ahead.
  They plunge through defenses
   without breaking ranks.
  ⁹ They rush upon the city;
   they run along the wall.
  They climb into the houses;
   like thieves they enter through the windows.

  ¹⁰ Before them the earth shakes,
   the heavens tremble,
  the sun and moon are darkened,
   and the stars no longer shine.
  ¹¹ The Lord thunders
   at the head of his army;
  his forces are beyond number,
   and mighty is the army that obeys his command.
  The day of the Lord is great;
   it is dreadful.
   Who can endure it?

Rend Your Heart

  ¹² “Even now,” declares the Lord,
   “return to me with all your heart,
   with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

  ¹³ Rend your heart
   and not your garments.
  Return to the Lord your God,
   for he is gracious and compassionate,
  slow to anger and abounding in love,
   and he relents from sending calamity.
  ¹⁴ Who knows? He may turn and relent
   and leave behind a blessing —
  grain offerings and drink offerings
   for the Lord your God.

  ¹⁵ Blow the trumpet in Zion,
   declare a holy fast,
   call a sacred assembly.
  ¹⁶ Gather the people,
   consecrate the assembly;
  bring together the elders,
   gather the children,
   those nursing at the breast.
  Let the bridegroom leave his room
   and the bride her chamber.
  ¹⁷ Let the priests, who minister before the Lord,
   weep between the portico and the altar.
  Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord.
   Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
   a byword among the nations.
  Why should they say among the peoples,
   ‘Where is their God? ’”