Bible in a Year.

On day 204, Isaiah 28-29 warns against pride and self-sufficiency, calling for humility before God. Zephaniah 1-2 announces judgment on Judah and the wicked nations, emphasizing divine justice. Proverbs 11:9-12 teaches us about integrity, the importance of good counsel, and the strength of a godly community, reinforcing principles for daily living.

Chapter 28

1. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower the glory of his joy, who were on the head of the fat valley, staggering with wine.

2. Behold the Lord is mighty and strong, as a storm of hail: a destroying whirlwind, as the violence of many waters overflowing, and sent forth upon a spacious land.

3. The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim shall be trodden under feet.

4. And the fading flower the glory of his joy, who is on the head of the fat valley, shall be as a hasty fruit before the ripeness of autumn: which when he that seeth it shall behold, as soon as he taketh it in his hand, he will eat it up.

5. In that day the Lord of hosts shall be a crown of glory, and a garland of joy to the residue of his people:

6. And a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judgment, and strength to them that return out of the battle to the gate.

7. But these also have been ignorant through wine, and through drunkenness have erred: the priest and the prophet have been ignorant through drunkenness, they are swallowed up with wine, they have gone astray in drunkenness, they have not known him that seeth, they have been ignorant of judgment.

8. For all tables were full of vomit and filth, so that there was no more place.

9. Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand the hearing? them that are weaned from the milk, that are drawn away from the breasts.

10. For command, command again; command, command again; expect, expect again; expect, expect again: a little there, a little there.

11. For with the speech of lips, and with another tongue he will speak to this people.

12. To whom he said: This is my rest, refresh the weary, and this is my refreshing: and they would not hear.

13. And the word of the Lord shall be to them: Command, command again; command, command again: expect, expect again; expect, expect again: a little there, a little there: that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

14. Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, who rule over my people that is in Jerusalem.

15. For you have said : We have entered into a league with death, and we have made a covenant with hell. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come upon us: for we have placed our hope in lies, and by falsehood we are protected.

16. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation. He that believeth, let him not hasten.

17. And I will set judgment in weight, and justice in measure: and hail shall overturn the hope of falsehood: and waters shall overflow its protection.

18. And Sour league with death shall be abolished, and your covenant with hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass, you shall be trodden down by it.

19. Whensoever it shall pass through, it shall take you away: because in the morning early it shall pass through, in the day and in the night, and vexation alone shall make you understand what you hear.

20. For the bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and a short covering can- not cover both.

21. For the Lord shall stand up as in the mountain of divisions: he shall be angry as in the valley which is in Gabaon: that he may do his work, his strange work: that he may perform his work, his work is strange to him.

22. And now do not mock, lest your bonds be tied strait. For I have heard of the Lord the God of hosts a consumption and a cutting short upon all the earth.

23. Give ear, and hear my voice, hearken, and hear my speech.

24. Shall the ploughman plough all the day to sow, shall he open and harrow his ground?

25. Will he not, when he hath made plain the surface thereof, sow gith, and scatter cummin, and put wheat in order, and barley, and millet, and vetches in their bounds?

26. For he will instruct him in judgment : his God will teach him.

27. For gith shall not be thrashed with saws, neither shall the cart wheel turn about upon cummin: but gith shall be beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a staff.

28. But bread corn shall be broken small: but the thrasher shall not thrash it for ever, neither shall the cart wheel hurt it, nor break it with its teeth.

29. This also is come forth from the Lord God of hosts, to make his counsel wonderful, and magnify justice.

Chapter 29

1. Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the city which David took: year is added to year: the solemnities are at an end.

2. And I will make a trench about Ariel, and it shall be in sorrow and mourning, and it shall be to me as Ariel.

3. And I will make a circle round about thee, and will cast up a rampart against thee, and raise up bulwarks to besiege thee.

4. Thou shalt be brought down, thou shalt speak out of the earth, and thy speech shall be heard out of the ground: and thy voice shall be from the earth like that of the python, and out of the ground thy speech shall mutter.

5. And the multitude of them that fan thee, shall be like small dust: and as ashes passing away, the multitude of them that have prevailed against thee.

6. And it shall be at an instant suddenly. A visitation shall come from the Lord of hosts in thunder, and with earthquake, and with a great noise of whirlwind and tempest, and with the flame of devouring fire.

7. And the multitude of all nations that have fought against Ariel, shall be as the dream of a vision by night, and all that have fought, and besieged and prevailed against it.

8. And as he that is hungry dreameth, and eateth, but when he is awake, his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreameth, and drinketh, and after he is awake, is yet faint with thirst, and his soul is empty: so shall be the multitude of all the Gentiles, that have fought against mount Sion.

9. Be astonished, and wander, waver, and stagger: be drunk, and not with wine: stagger, and not with drunkenness.

10. For the Lord hath mingled for you the spirit of a deep sleep, he will shut up your eyes, he will cover your prophets and princes, that see visions.

11. And the vision of all shall be unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which when they shall deliver to one that is learned, they shall say: Read this: and he shall answer: I cannot, for it is sealed.

12. And the book shall be given to one that knoweth no letters, and it shall be said to him: Read: and he shall answer: I know no letters.

13. And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips glorify me, but their heart is far from me, and they have feared me with the commandment and doctrines of men:

14. Therefore behold I will proceed to cause an admiration in this people, by a great and wonderful miracle: for wisdom shall perish from their wise men, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.

15. Woe to you that are deep of heart, to hide your counsel from the Lord: and their works are in the dark, and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us?

16. This thought of yours is perverse: as if the clay should think against the potter, and the work should say to the maker thereof: Thou madest me not: or the thing framed should say to him that fashioned it: Thou understandest not.

17. Is it not yet a very little while, and Libanus shall be turned into charmel, and charmel shall be esteemed as a forest?

18. And in that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and out of darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see.

19. And the meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

20. For he that did prevail hath failed, the scorner is consumed, and they are all cut off that watched for iniquity:

21. That made men sin by word, and supplanted him that reproved them in the gate, and declined in vain from the just.

22. Therefore thus saith the Lord to the house of Jacob, he that redeemed Abraham: Jacob shall not now be confounded, neither shall his countenance now be ashamed:

23. But when he shall see his children, the work of my hands in the midst of him sanctifying my name, and they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall glorify the God of Israel:

24. And they that erred in spirit, shall know understanding, and they that murmured, shall learn the law.

Chapter 1

1. The word of the Lord that came to Sophonias the son of Chusi, the son of Godolias, the son of Amarias, the son of Ezechias, in the days of Josias the son of Amon king of Juda.

2. Gathering, I will gather together all things from off the face of the land, saith the Lord:

3. I will gather man, and beast, I will gather the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea: and the ungodly shall meet with ruin: and I will destroy men from off the face of the land, saith the Lord.

4. And I will stretch out my hand upon Juda, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and I will destroy out of this place the remnant of Baal, and the names of the wardens of the temples with the priests:

5. And them that worship the host of heaven upon the tops of houses, and them that adore, and swear by the Lord, and swear by Melchom.

6. And them that turn away from following after the Lord, and that have not sought the Lord, nor searched after him.

7. Be silent before the face of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is near, for the Lord hath prepared a victim, he hath sanctified his guests.

8. And it shall come to pass in the day of the victim of the Lord, that I will visit upon the princes, and upon the king's sons, and upon all such as are clothed with strange apparel.

9. And I will visit in that day upon every one that entereth arrogantly over the threshold: them that fill the house of the Lord their God with iniquity and deceit.

10. And there shall be in that day, saith the Lord, the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and a howling from the Second, and a great destruction from the hills.

11. Howl, ye inhabitants of the Morter. All the people of Chanaan is hush, all are cut off that were wrapped up in silver.

12. And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and will visit upon the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their hearts: The Lord will not do good, nor will he do evil.

13. And their strength shall become a booty, and their houses as a desert: and they shall build houses, and shall not dwell in them: and they shall plant vineyards, and shall not drink the wine of them.

14. The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and exceeding swift: the voice of the day of the Lord is bitter, the mighty man shall there meet with tribulation.

15. That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds,

16. A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high bulwarks.

17. And I will distress men, and they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as earth, and their bodies as dung.

18. Neither shall their silver and their gold be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord: all the land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make even a speedy destruction of all them that dwell in the land.

Chapter 2

1. Assemble yourselves together, be gathered together, O nation not worthy to be loved:

2. Before the decree bring forth the day as dust passing away, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord's indignation come upon you.

3. Seek the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, you that have wrought his judgment: seek the just, seek the meek: if by any means you may be hid in the day of the Lord's indignation.

4. For Gaza shall be destroyed, and Ascalon shall be a desert, they shall cast out Azotus at noonday, and Accaron shall be rooted up.

5. Woe to you that inhabit the sea coast, O nation of reprobates: the word of the Lord upon you, O Chanaan, the land of the Philistines, and I will destroy thee, so that there shall not be an inhabitant.

6. And the sea coast shall be the resting place of shepherds, and folds for cattle:

7. And it shall be the portion of him that shall remain of the house of Juda, there they shall feed: in the houses of Ascalon they shall rest in the evening: because the Lord their God will visit them, and bring back their captivity.

8. I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the blasphemies of the children of Ammon, with which they reproached my people, and have magnified themselves upon their borders.

9. Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel, Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrha, the dryness of thorns, and heaps of salt, and a desert even for ever: the remnant of my people shall make a spoil of them, and the residue of my nation shall possess them.

10. This shall befall them for their pride: because they have blasphemed, and have been magnified against the people of the Lord of hosts.

11. The Lord shall be terrible upon them, and shall consume all the gods of the earth: and they shall adore him every man from his own place, all the islands of the Gentiles.

12. You Ethiopians, also shall be slain with my sword.

13. And he will stretch out his hand upon the north, and will destroy Assyria: and he will make the beautiful city a wilderness, and as a place not passable, and as a desert.

14. And flocks shall lie down in the midst thereof, all the beasts of the nations: and the bittern and the urchin shall lodge in the threshold thereof: the voice of the singing bird in the window, the raven on the upper post, for I will consume her strength.

15. This is the glorious city that dwelt in security: that said in her heart: I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desert, a place for beasts to lie down in? every one that passeth by her, shall hiss, and wag his hand.

9. The dissembler with his mouth deceiveth his friend: but the just shall be delivered by knowledge.

10. When it goeth well with the just the city shall rejoice: and when the wicked perish there shall be praise.

11. By the blessing of the just the city shall be exalted: and by the mouth of the wicked it shall be overthrown.

12. He that despiseth his friend, is mean of heart: but the wise man will hold his peace.