Bible in a Year.

On day 219, we contemplate hope and restoration. Isaiah 59-60 announces God's deliverance and light for His people. Ezekiel 19 laments destruction and exile, reminding us of the seriousness of sin. Proverbs 13:9-12 teaches that hope and growth come from learning and patience, offering lessons of trust in God's faithfulness.

Chapter 59

1. Behold the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear.

2. But your iniquities have divided between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he should not hear.

3. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity: your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue uttereth iniquity.

4. There is none that calleth upon justice, neither is there any one that judgeth truly: but they trust in a mere nothing, and speak vanities: they have conceived labour, and brought forth iniquity.

5. They have broken the eggs of asps, and have woven the webs of spiders: he that shall eat of their eggs, shall die: and that which is brought out, shall be hatched into a basilisk.

6. Their webs shall not be for clothing, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are unprofitable works, and the work of iniquity is in their hands.

7. Their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are unprofitable thoughts: wasting and destruction are in their ways.

8. They have not known the way of peace, and there is no judgment in their steps: their paths are become crooked to them, every one that treadeth in them, knoweth no peace.

9. Therefore is judgment far from us, and justice shall not overtake us. We looked for light, and behold darkness: brightness, and we have walked in the dark.

10. We have groped for the wall, and like the blind we have groped as if we had no eyes: we have stumbled at noonday as in darkness, we are in dark places as dead men.

11. We shall roar all of us like bears, and shall lament as mournful doves. We have looked for judgment, and there is none: for salvation, and it is far from us.

12. For our iniquities are multiplied before thee, and our sins have testified against us: for our wicked doings are with us, and we have known our iniquities:

13. In sinning and lying against the Lord: and we have turned away so that we went not after our God, but spoke calumny and transgression : we have conceived, and uttered from the heart, words of falsehood.

14. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice hath stood far off: because truth bath fallen down in the street, and equity could not come in.

15. And truth hath been forgotten: and he that departed from evil, lay open to be a prey: and the Lord saw, and it appeared evil in his eyes, because there is no judgment.

16. And he saw that there is not a man: and he stood astonished, because there is none to oppose himself: and his own arm brought salvation to him, and his own justice supported him.

17. He put on justice as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head: he put on the garments of vengeance, and was clad with zeal as with a cloak.

18. As unto revenge, as it were to repay wrath to his adversaries, and a reward to his enemies: he will repay the like to the islands.

19. And they from the west, shall fear the name of the Lord: and they from the rising of the sun, his glory: when he shall come as a violent stream, which the spirit of the Lord driveth on:

20. And there shall come a, redeemer to Sion, and to them that return from iniquity in Jacob, saith the Lord.

21. This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My spirit that is in thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.

Chapter 60

1. Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

2. For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

3. And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising.

4. Lift up thy eyes round about, and see: all these are gathered together, they are come to thee: thy sons shah come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at thy side.

5. Then shalt thou see, and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged, when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to thee, the. strength of the Gentiles shall come to thee.

6. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Madian and Epha: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and frankincense: and shewing forth praise to the Lord.

7. All the flocks of Cedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nabaioth shall minister to thee: they shall be offered upon my acceptable altar, and I will glorify the house of my majesty.

8. Who are these, that fly as clouds, and as doves to their windows?

9. For, the islands wait for me, and the ships of the sea in the beginning: that I may bring thy sons from afar: their silver, and their gold with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee.

10. And the children of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister to thee: for in my wrath have I struck thee, and in my reconciliation have I had mercy upon thee.

11. And thy gates shall be open continually: they shall not be shut day nor night, that the strength of the Gentiles may be brought to thee, and their kings may be brought.

12. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee, shall perish: and the Gentiles shall be wasted with desolation.

13. The glory of Libanus shall come to thee, the Ar tree, and the box tree, and the pine tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary: and I will glorify the place of my feet.

14. And the children of them that afflict thee, shall come bowing down to thee, and all that slandered thee shall worship the steps of thy feet, and shall call thee the city of the Lord, the Sion of the Holy One of Israel.

15. Because thou wast forsaken, and hated, and there was none that passed through thee, I will make thee to be an everlasting glory, a joy unto generation and generation:

16. And thou shalt suck the milk of the Gentiles, and thou shalt be nursed with the breasts of kings: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

17. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver: and for wood brass, and for stones iron: and I will make thy visitation peace, and thy overseers justice.

18. Iniquity shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction in thy borders, and salvation shall possess thy walls, and praise thy gates.

19. Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory.

20. Thy sun shall go down no more, and thy moon shall not decrease: for the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

21. And thy people shall be all just, they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hand to glorify me.

22. The least shall become a thousand, and a little one a most strong nation: I the Lord will suddenly do this thing in its time.

1. Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

2. And say: Why did thy mother the lioness lie down among the lions, and bring up her whelps in the midst of young lions?

3. And she brought out one of her whelps, and he became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.

4. And the nations heard of him, and took him, but not without receiving wounds: and they brought him in chains into the land of Egypt.

5. But she seeing herself weakened, and that her hope was lost, took one of her young lions, and set him up for a lion.

6. And he went up and down among the lions, and became a lion: and he learned to catch the prey, and to devour men.

7. He learned to make widows, and to lay waste their cities: and the land became desolate, and the fulness thereof by the noise of his roaring.

8. And the nations Game together against him on every side out of the provinces, and they spread their net over him, in their wounds he was taken.

9. And they put him into a cage, they brought him in chains to the king of Babylon: and they cast him into prison, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

10. Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood planted by the water: her fruit and her branches have grown out of many waters.

11. And she hath strong rods to make sceptres for them that bear rule, and her stature was exalted among the branches: and she saw her height in the multitude of her branches.

12. But she was plucked up in wrath, and cast on the ground, and the burning wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods are withered, and dried up: the fire hath devoured her.

13. And now she is transplanted into the desert, in a land not passable, and dry.

14. And a fire is gone out from a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit: so that she now hath no strong rod, to be a sceptre of rulers. This is a lamentation, and it shall be for a lamentation.

9. The light of the just giveth joy: but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.

10. Among the proud there are always contentions: but they that do all things with counsel, are ruled by wisdom.

11. Substance got in haste shall be diminished: but that which by little and little is gathered with the hand shall increase.

12. Hope that is deferred afflicteth the soul: desire when it cometh is a tree of life.