Isaiah 46:8

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and Yahweh’s glory has risen on you.

Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits.

so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.

Awake, awake! Put on your strength, Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for from now on the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you.

For God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.

“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

Watch! Stand firm in the faith! Be courageous! Be strong!

So teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Every one them had four faces. The first face was the face of the cherub. The second face was the face of a man. The third face was the face of a lion. The fourth was the face of an eagle.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Do this, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awaken out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed.

For your obedience has become known to all. I rejoice therefore over you. But I desire to have you wise in that which is good, but innocent in that which is evil.

that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;

Awake, awake! Stand up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from Yahweh’s hand the cup of his wrath. You have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it.

He died for all, that those who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who for their sakes died and rose again.

If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.

For everyone who lives on milk is not experienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby.

Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!

‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’

Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants,

Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, doesn’t faint. He isn’t weary. His understanding is unsearchable.

Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination.

Oh that you had listened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

Now, please consider from this day and backward, before a stone was laid on a stone in Yahweh’s temple.

“Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

But Jesus said, “Allow the little children, and don’t forbid them to come to me; for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to ones like these.”

When Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I truly know that the Lord has sent out his angel and delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from everything the Jewish people were expecting.”

but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Good News.

as newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, that with it you may grow,

Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse:

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

Yet I reserved seven thousand in Israel, all the knees of which have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him.”

The wicked go astray from the womb. They are wayward as soon as they are born, speaking lies.

Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.

Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship.

“Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called the mistress of kingdoms.

They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move.

I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, ‘I will not listen.’ This has been your way from your youth, that you didn’t obey my voice.

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Yahweh.

For she didn’t know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off.

and said, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you turn, and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these.

for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.’ Then they began to celebrate.

saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.

Yet he didn’t leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from the sky and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ.

Wake up righteously, and don’t sin, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.

seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment,

Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus,

Putting away therefore all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking,

For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle.

For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon.

The king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

Her filthiness was in her skirts. She didn’t remember her latter end. Therefore she has come down astoundingly. She has no comforter. “See, Yahweh, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.”

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.

because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the dawn from on high will visit us,

Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to nothing.

even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you.

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

It shall happen, when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind among all the nations where Yahweh your God has driven you,

Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them.

Those who make them will be like them, yes, everyone who trusts in them.

Haven’t you known? Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you been told from the beginning? Haven’t you understood from the foundations of the earth?

No one thinks, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned part of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals. I have roasted meat and eaten it. Shall I make the rest of it into an abomination? Shall I bow down to a tree trunk?”

You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’ so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results.

Yes, you didn’t hear. Yes, you didn’t know. Yes, from of old your ear was not opened, for I knew that you dealt very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the womb.

But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood.

As for the likeness of their faces, they had the face of a man. The four of them had the face of a lion on the right side. The four of them had the face of an ox on the left side. The four of them also had the face of an eagle.

Because he considers, and turns away from all his transgressions that he has committed, he shall surely live. He shall not die.

Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, ‘They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.’

Now therefore this is what Yahweh of Armies says: Consider your ways.

This is what Yahweh of Armies says: “Consider your ways.

But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough to spare, and I’m dying with hunger!

Brothers, don’t be children in thoughts, yet in malice be babies, but in thoughts be mature.

Therefore he says, “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”