1 Then Zophar the Naamathite answered by saying:
2 In response, various thoughts succeed one another in me, and my mind moves quickly through different ideas.
3 The teaching you use to admonish me, I will hear, and the spirit of my understanding will respond for me.
4 This, I know, is from the beginning, from the time that man was set over the earth:
5 that the praise of the impious shall be short, and the joy of the hypocrite lasts only a moment.
6 If his pride ascends even towards the heavens, and his head touches the clouds,
7 in the end, he will be destroyed like a trash heap, and those who had seen him will say: “Where is he?”
8 Like a dream that flies away, he will not be found; he will pass away like a nightmare.
9 The eyes that had seen him, will not see him; no longer will his own place admire him.
10 His sons will be worn away by poverty, and his own hands will deliver his grief to him.
11 His bones will be filled with the vices of his youth, and they will sleep with him in the dust.
12 For, when evil will be sweet in his mouth, he will hide it under his tongue.
13 He will permit it, and not abandon it, and he will conceal it in his throat.
14 His bread in his belly will be turned into the venom of snakes within him.
15 The riches that he devours, he will vomit up, and from his stomach God will draw them out.
16 He will suck the head of snakes, and the tongue of the viper will kill him.
17 (May he never see the streams of the river, the torrents of honey and butter.)
18 He will be repaid for all he has done, yet he will not be consumed; according to the multitude of his schemes, so also will he suffer.
19 For, having broken in, he stripped the poor. He has quickly stolen away a house he did not build.
20 And yet his stomach will not be satisfied, and when he has the things he desires, he will not be able to possess them.
21 Nothing remained of his portion, and, because of this, nothing will continue of his kind.
22 When he will be satisfied, he will be constrained; he will seethe, and all anguish will fall upon him.
23 May his stomach be filled, so that God may send forth the fury of his wrath to him and may rain down his battle upon him.
24 He will flee from weapons of iron, and he will fall in an arc of brass,
25 which had been drawn and had issued forth from its sheath, glittering in its bitterness: the horrible ones will go forth and approach over him.
26 All darkness has been hidden in his secrecy. A fire that has not been set will devour him; he will be thrown down and forsaken in his tabernacle.
27 The heavens will reveal his sinfulness, and the earth will rise up against him.
28 The offspring of his house will be exposed; he will be pulled down in the day of God’s wrath.
29 This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the inheritance of his words from the Lord.
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1 The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by the hand of Malachi.
2 I have loved you, says the Lord, and you have said, “In what way have you loved us?” Was not Esau brother to Jacob, says the Lord? And have I not loved Jacob,
3 but held hatred for Esau? And I have set his mountains in solitude, and his inheritance with the serpents of the desert.
4 But if Idumea will say, “We have been destroyed, but when we return, we will build up what has been destroyed,” thus says the Lord of hosts: They will build up, and I will destroy. And they will be called “The limits of impiety,” and, “The people with whom the Lord has been angry, even to eternity.”
5 And your eyes will see. And you will say, “May the Lord be magnified beyond the limits of Israel.”
6 The son honors the father, and the servant his master. If, therefore, I am Father, where is my honor? And if I am Master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. And you have said, “In what way, have we despised your name?”
7 You offer polluted bread upon my altar, and you say, “In what way, have we polluted you?” In that you say, “The table of the Lord has been despised.”
8 If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is this not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is this not evil? Offer it to your leader, if he will be pleased with it, or if he will accept your face, says the Lord of hosts.
9 And now, beseech the face of God, so that he may have mercy on you (for by your hand has this been done) if, in any way, he might accept your faces, says the Lord of hosts.
10 Who is there among you that would close the doors and enflame my altar without pay? I have no favor in you, says the Lord of hosts. And I will not accept a gift from your hand.
11 For, from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place, a clean oblation is being sacrificed and offered to my name. For my name is great among the Gentiles, says the Lord of hosts.
12 And you have polluted it, in that you say, “The table of the Lord has been contaminated; and that which is placed upon it is contemptible, compared with the fire that devours it.”
13 And you have said, “Behold our labor,” and you have exhaled it away, says the Lord of hosts. And you brought in by plunder the lame, and the sick, and brought it in as a gift. How can I receive this from your hand, says the Lord?
14 Cursed is the deceitful, who holds in his flock a male, and, when making a vow, offers in sacrifice that which is feeble to the Lord. For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the Gentiles.
1 And now, O priests, this command is to you.
2 If you will refuse to listen, and if you will refuse to take it to heart, so as to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, I will send destitution upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yes, I will curse them. For you have not taken it to heart.
3 Behold, I will cast forth an arm to you, and I will scatter across your face the dung of your solemnities, and it will take you to itself.
4 And you will know that I sent you this commandment, so that my covenant might be with Levi, says the Lord of hosts.
5 My covenant was with him for life and peace. And I gave him fear, and he feared me, and he was afraid before the face of my name.
6 The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and integrity, and he turned away many from iniquity.
7 For the lips of the priests will keep knowledge, and they will request the law from his mouth, because he is an angel of the Lord of hosts.
8 But you have withdrawn from the way, and you have scandalized very many in the law. You have nullified the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts.
9 Because of this, I also have made you contemptible and debased to all the people, just as you have not served my ways, and you have accepted a face in the law.
10 Is there not one Father of us all? Did not one God create us? Why, then, does each one of us despise his brother, violating the covenant of our fathers?
11 Judah has transgressed, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has contaminated the sanctified of the Lord, which he loved, and has held the daughter of a strange god.
12 The Lord will drive away the man who has done this, both the teacher and the disciple, from the tabernacles of Jacob and from those offering a gift to the Lord of hosts.
13 And you have done this repeatedly: you have covered the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and bellowing, to such an extent that I no longer have respect towards the sacrifice, nor do I accept any appeasement that is from your hands.
14 And you have said, “What is the reason for this?” It is because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have despised. Yet she was your partner, and the wife of your covenant.
15 Did not One make her, and is she not the remainder of his spirit? And what does one seek, except offspring of God? So then, preserve your spirit, and do not despise the wife of your youth.
16 If you would hold hatred, dismiss her, says the Lord, the God of Israel. But iniquity will cover his garment, says the Lord of hosts. Preserve your spirit, and do not be willing to despise.
17 You have wearied the Lord with your speeches, and you have said, “In what way, have we wearied him?” In that you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and such as these please him,” or certainly, “Where is the God of judgment?”
18 The Lord chastising hath chastised me: but he hath not delivered me over to death.
19 Open ye to me the gates of justice: I will go into them, and give praise to the Lord.
20 This is the gate of the Lord, the just shall enter into it.
21 I will give glory to thee because thou hast heard me: and art become my salvation.
22 The stone which the builders rejected; the same is become the head of the corner.
23 This is the Lord’s doing: and it is wonderful in our eyes.
24 This is the day which the Lord hath made: let us be glad and rejoice therein.
1 And so, my most beloved and most desired brothers, my joy and my crown: stand firm in this way, in the Lord, most beloved.
2 I ask Euodia, and I beg Syntyche, to have the same understanding in the Lord.
3 And I also ask you, as my genuine companion, to assist those women who have labored with me in the Gospel, with Clement and the rest of my assistants, whose names are in the Book of Life.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, rejoice.
5 Let your modesty be known to all men. The Lord is near.
6 Be anxious about nothing. But in all things, with prayer and supplication, with acts of thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God.
7 And so shall the peace of God, which exceeds all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Concerning the rest, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is chaste, whatever is just, whatever is holy, whatever is worthy to be loved, whatever is of good repute, if there is any virtue, if there is any praiseworthy discipline: meditate on these.
9 All the things that you have learned and accepted and heard and seen in me, do these. And so shall the God of peace be with you.
10 Now I rejoice in the Lord exceedingly, because finally, after some time, your feelings for me have flourished again, just as you formerly felt. For you had been preoccupied.
11 I am not saying this as if out of need. For I have learned that, in whatever state I am, it is sufficient.
12 I know how to be humbled, and I know how to abound. I am prepared for anything, anywhere: either to be full or to be hungry, either to have abundance or to endure scarcity.
13 Everything is possible in him who has strengthened me.
14 Yet truly, you have done well by sharing in my tribulation.
15 But you also know, O Philippians, that at the beginning of the Gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not a single church shared with me in the plan of giving and receiving, except you alone.
16 For you even sent to Thessalonica, once, and then a second time, for what was useful to me.
17 It is not that I am seeking a gift. Instead, I seek the fruit that abounds to your benefit.
18 But I have everything in abundance. I have been filled up, having received from Epaphroditus the things that you sent; this is an odor of sweetness, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.
19 And may my God fulfill all your desires, according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
20 And to God our Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.
21 Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.
22 The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, but especially those who are of Caesar’s household.
23 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
