Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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THE FIRST VISION
Ezra's Prayer of Complaint
1 Thirty years after the fall of Jerusalem,
I, Shealtiel (also
known as Ezra), was in Babylon. I
was lying on my bed, troubled and
disturbed, note
2 as I thought about the
ruins of Jerusalem and the prosperity
of those who lived in Babylon.
3 I
was deeply disturbed and began to
express my fears to God Most High.
4 “O Lord and Master,” I said, “you,
and you alone, spoke the word at the
beginning of creation and formed
the world. At your command the
dust
5 produced the lifeless body of
Adam. Then with your hands you
shaped it, you breathed into it the
breath of life, and he began to live.
6 You brought him into the Garden
of Eden, which you yourself had
planted before the earth was made.
7 You gave him just one commandment,
but he disobeyed it, and you
-- --
immediately made him and his descendants
subject to death.
7 “From Adam were born more nations,
tribes, clans, and families than
can be counted. note
8 All the nations did
whatever they wished; they sinned
against you and rejected your commands.
But you did nothing to stop
them. note
9 Then again, after a while,
you brought on the flood and destroyed
the world's population. note
10 They all suffered the same fate: as
death had come to Adam, so now
death came to a whole generation in
the flood.
11 But you spared one man,
Noah, with his family and all his
righteous descendants.
12 “The number of people living on
earth began to increase, and the
number of families, tribes, and nations
grew. They too fell into sin and
were worse than the generations before
them.
13 But then you chose
Abraham.
14 You loved him, and to
him alone in the dead of night, you
secretly disclosed how the world
would end.
15 You made an everlasting
covenant with him and promised
him that you would never abandon
his descendants. You gave him
Isaac, and to Isaac you gave Jacob
and Esau.
16 You chose Jacob, and
his descendants became a great nation,
but you rejected Esau.
17 “You rescued the descendants
of Jacob from Egypt and led them to
Mount Sinai.
18 There you bent down
the skies, shook note the earth, moved
the world, made the waters beneath
the earth tremble, and brought disorder
to the universe.
19 The dazzling
light of your presence passed
through the four gates of fire, earthquake,
wind, and frost, in order to
give the Law and its commandments
to Jacob's descendants, the people
of Israel.
20 Yet you did not remove
their evil impulse, but let your Law
guide their lives. note
21 The first man,
Adam, weighed down with an evil
impulse, sinned and was defeated,
and the same was true of all of his
descendants.
22 So the disease became
permanent, and although the
Law was in the hearts of the people,
so also was the root of evil! That is
why what was good passed away,
while what was evil continued.
23 “Many years later you sent your
servant David
24 and told him to
build a city which would bear your
name and in which sacrifices would
be offered to you.
25 This was done
for many years, but then the inhabitants
of the city disobeyed you
26 and
sinned just like Adam and all his descendants,
because they had the
same evil impulse.
27 So you handed
over your own city to your enemies.
28 “I said to myself, ‘Perhaps Babylon
has been allowed to conquer Jerusalem
because the people who live
there are better than we are.’
29 But
when I got to Babylon, I saw more
sins than I could count, and now for
thirty years I have seen many sinners
here. So I was perplexed
30 when I saw how you tolerate sinners
and do not punish them, how
you protect your enemies and yet
destroy your own people.
31 You
haven't given the faintest hint as to
how these ways of yours can be
changed. Surely Babylon is no better
than Jerusalem.
32 No other nation,
except Israel, has ever known you or
accepted your covenants.
33 But Israel
was never rewarded, and never
profited from its labor. I have traveled
widely in the other nations, and
I have seen how prosperous they
are, although they don't keep your
commands.
34 Now then, Lord, if you
would just weigh our sins on the
scales against those of the rest of the
world, it would be perfectly clear
that their sins are heavier.
35 There
has never been a time when the people
of the world did not sin against
you; but has any other nation kept
your commands as well as Israel
has?
36 You may find individuals who
have, but you won't find a nation
that has done so.”
Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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