The Living Bible (279 page)

Daniel
12

“At that time Michael, the mighty angelic prince who stands guard over your nation, will stand up and fight for you in heaven against satanic forces,
*
and there will be a time of anguish for the Jews greater than any previous suffering in Jewish history. And yet every one of your people whose names are written in the Book will endure it.

    
²
 “And many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

    
³
 “And those who are wise—the people of God—shall shine as brightly as the sun’s brilliance, and those who turn many to righteousness will glitter like stars forever.

    
⁴
 “But Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal it up so that it will not be understood until the end times, when travel and education shall be vastly increased!”

    
⁵
 Then I, Daniel, looked and saw two men
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on each bank of a river.
⁶
 And one of them asked the man in linen robes who was standing now above the river, “How long will it be until all these terrors end?”

    
⁷
 He replied, with both hands lifted to heaven, taking oath by him who lives forever and ever, that they will not end until three and a half years after the power of God’s people has been crushed.
*

    
⁸
 I heard what he said, but I didn’t understand what he meant. So I said, “Sir, how will all this finally end?”

    
⁹
 But he said, “Go now, Daniel, for what I have said is not to be understood until the time of the end.
¹⁰
 Many shall be purified by great trials and persecutions. But the wicked shall continue in their wickedness, and none of them will understand. Only those who are willing to learn will know what it means.

    
¹¹
 “From the time the daily sacrifice is taken away and the Horrible Thing is set up to be worshiped, there will be 1,290 days.
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¹²
 And blessed are those who wait and remain until the 1,335th day!

    
¹³
 “But go on now to the end of your life and your rest; for you will rise again and have your full share of those last days.”
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Hosea

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Hosea
1

These are the messages from the Lord to Hosea, son of Beeri, during the reigns of these four kings of Judah:

    
Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; and one of the kings of Israel, Jeroboam, son of Joash.

    
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 Here is the first message:

    
The Lord said to Hosea, “Go and marry a girl who is a prostitute, so that some of her children will be born to you from other men. This will illustrate the way my people have been untrue to me, committing open adultery against me by worshiping other gods.”

    
³
 So Hosea married Gomer, daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

    
^4-5
 And the Lord said, “Name the child Jezreel, for in the valley of Jezreel I am about to punish King Jehu’s dynasty to avenge the murders he committed;
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in fact, I will put an end to Israel as an independent kingdom, breaking the power of the nation in the valley of Jezreel.”
*

    
⁶
 Soon Gomer had another child—this one a daughter. And God said to Hosea, “Name her Lo-ruhamah (meaning ‘No more mercy’) for I will have no more mercy upon Israel, to forgive her again.
⁷
 But I
will
have mercy on the tribe of Judah. I will personally free her from her enemies without any help from her armies or her weapons.”
*

    
⁸
 After Gomer had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she again conceived and this time gave birth to a son.
⁹
 And God said, “Call him Lo-ammi (meaning ‘Not mine’), for Israel is not mine and I am not her God.

    
¹⁰
 “Yet the time will come when Israel shall prosper and become a great nation; in that day her people will be too numerous to count—like sand along a seashore! Then, instead of saying to them, ‘You are not my people,’ I will tell them, ‘You are my sons, children of the Living God.’
¹¹
 Then the people of Judah and Israel will unite and have one leader; they will return from exile together; what a day that will be—the day when God will sow his people in the fertile soil of their own land again.
*

Hosea
2

“O Jezreel,
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rename your brother and sister. Call your brother Ammi (which means ‘Now you are mine’); name your sister Ruhamah (‘Pitied’), for now God will have mercy upon her!

    
²
 “Plead with your mother, for she has become another man’s wife—I am no longer her husband. Beg her to stop her harlotry, to quit giving herself to others.
³
 If she doesn’t, I will strip her as naked as the day she was born and cause her to waste away and die of thirst as in a land riddled with famine and drought.
⁴
 And I will not give special favors to her children as I would to my own, for they are not my children; they belong to other men.

    
⁵
 “For their mother has committed adultery. She did a shameful thing when she said, ‘I’ll run after other men and sell myself to them for food and drinks and clothes.’

    
⁶
 “But I will fence her in with briars and thornbushes; I’ll block the road before her to make her lose her way, so that
⁷
 when she runs after her lovers, she will not catch up with them. She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’

    
⁸
 “She doesn’t realize that all she has, has come from me. It was I who gave her all the gold and silver she used in worshiping Baal, her god!

    
⁹
 “But now I will take back the wine and ripened corn I constantly supplied, and the clothes I gave her to cover her nakedness—I will no longer give her rich harvests of grain in its season or wine at the time of the grape harvest.
¹⁰
 Now I will expose her nakedness in public for all her lovers to see, and no one will be able to rescue her from my hand.

    
¹¹
 “I will put an end to all her joys, her parties, holidays, and feasts.
¹²
 I will destroy her vineyards and her orchards—gifts she claims her lovers gave her—and let them grow into a jungle; wild animals will eat their fruit.

    
¹³
 “For all the incense she burned to Baal her idol and for the times when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out looking for her lovers and deserted me—for all these things I will punish her,” says the Lord.

    
¹⁴
 “But I will court her again and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her tenderly there.
¹⁵
 There I will give back her vineyards to her and transform her Valley of Troubles into a Door of Hope. She will respond to me there, singing with joy as in days long ago in her youth after I had freed her from captivity in Egypt.

    
¹⁶
 “In that coming day,” says the Lord, “she will call me ‘My Husband’ instead of ‘My Master.’
*
¹⁷
 O Israel, I will cause you to forget your idols, and their names will not be spoken anymore.

    
¹⁸
 “At that time I will make a treaty between you and the wild animals, birds, and snakes, not to fear each other anymore; and I will destroy all weapons, and all wars will end.

    
“Then you will lie down in peace and safety, unafraid;
¹⁹
 and I will bind you to me forever with chains of righteousness and justice and love and mercy.
²⁰
 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and love, and you will really know me then as you never have before.

    
^21-22
 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will answer the pleading of the sky for clouds, to pour down water on the earth in answer to its cry for rain. Then the earth can answer the parched cry of the grain, the grapes, and the olive trees for moisture and for dew—and the whole grand chorus shall sing together that ‘God sows!’
*
He has given all!

    
²³
 “At that time I will sow a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself! I will pity those who are ‘not pitied,’
*
and I will say to those who are ‘not my people,’ ‘Now you are my people’; and they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”

Hosea
3

Then the Lord said to me, “Go, and get your wife again and bring her back to you and love her, even though she loves adultery. For the Lord still loves Israel though she has turned to other gods and offered them choice gifts.”

    
²
 So I bought her back from her slavery
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for a couple of dollars and eight bushels of barley,
³
 and I said to her, “You must live alone for many days; do not go out with other men nor be a prostitute, and I will wait for you.”

    
⁴
 This illustrates the fact that Israel will be a long time without a king or prince, and without an altar, Temple, priests, or even idols!

    
⁵
 Afterward they will return to the Lord their God and to the Messiah, their King,
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and they shall come trembling, submissive to the Lord and to his blessings in the end times.