Formation Journal Reading Plan

2:1 He who dashes in pieces has come up against you. Keep the fortress! Watch the way! Strengthen your waist! Fortify your power mightily!

2:2 For Yahweh restores the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for the destroyers have destroyed them, and ruined their vine branches.

2:3 The shield of his mighty men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished.

2:4 The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the broad ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.

2:5 He summons his picked troops. They stumble on their way. They dash to its wall, and the protective shield is put in place.

2:6 The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.

2:7 It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her handmaids moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts.

2:8 But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. “Stop! Stop!” they cry, but no one looks back.

2:9 Take the spoil of silver. Take the spoil of gold, for there is no end of the store, the glory of all goodly furniture.

2:10 She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.

2:11 Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked, the lion’s cubs, and no one made them afraid?

2:12 The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his caves with the kill, and his dens with prey.

2:13 “Behold, I am against you,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard.”

3:1 Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey doesn’t depart.

3:2 The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots,

3:3 the horseman mounting, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies,

3:4 because of the multitude of the prostitution of the alluring prostitute, the mistress of witchcraft, who sells nations through her prostitution, and families through her witchcraft.

3:5 “Behold, I am against you,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame.

3:6 I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle.

3:7 It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”

3:8 Are you better than No-Amon, who was situated among the rivers, who had the waters around her; whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea?

3:9 Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength. Put and Libya were her helpers.

3:10 Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

3:11 You also will be drunken. You will be hidden. You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy.

3:12 All your fortresses will be like fig trees with the first-ripe figs: if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater.

3:13 Behold, your troops in your midst are women. The gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies. The fire has devoured your bars.

3:14 Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.

3:15 There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust.

3:16 You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies. The grasshopper strips, and flees away.

3:17 Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.

3:18 Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.

3:19 There is no healing your wound, for your injury is fatal. All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you; for who hasn’t felt your endless cruelty?

23:1 When you sit to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before you;

23:2 put a knife to your throat, if you are a man given to appetite.

23:3 Don’t be desirous of his dainties, since they are deceitful food.

23:4 Don’t weary yourself to be rich. In your wisdom, show restraint.

23:5 Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.

23:6 Don’t eat the food of him who has a stingy eye, and don’t crave his delicacies:

23:7 for as he thinks about the cost, so he is. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

23:8 The morsel which you have eaten you shall vomit up, and lose your good words.

23:9 Don’t speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.

23:10 Don’t move the ancient boundary stone. Don’t encroach on the fields of the fatherless:

23:11 for their Defender is strong. He will plead their case against you.

23:12 Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to the words of knowledge.

23:13 Don’t withhold correction from a child. If you punish him with the rod, he will not die.

23:14 Punish him with the rod, and save his soul from Sheol.

23:15 My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad, even mine:

23:16 yes, my heart will rejoice, when your lips speak what is right.

11:1 A reed like a rod was given to me. Someone said, “Rise, and measure God’s temple, and the altar, and those who worship in it.

11:2 Leave out the court which is outside of the temple, and don’t measure it, for it has been given to the nations. They will tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months.

11:3 I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.”

11:4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands, standing before the Lord of the earth.

11:5 If anyone desires to harm them, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours their enemies. If anyone desires to harm them, he must be killed in this way.

11:6 These have the power to shut up the sky, that it may not rain during the days of their prophecy. They have power over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire.

11:7 When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them.

11:8 Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

11:9 From among the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations people will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not allow their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb.

11:10 Those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them, and they will be glad. They will give gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.

11:11 After the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet. Great fear fell on those who saw them.

11:12 I heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” They went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies saw them.

11:13 In that day there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

11:14 The second woe is past. Behold, the third woe comes quickly.

11:15 The seventh angel sounded, and great voices in heaven followed, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ. He will reign forever and ever!”

11:16 The twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God’s throne, fell on their faces and worshiped God,

11:17 saying: “We give you thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, the one who is and who was; because you have taken your great power, and reigned.

11:18 The nations were angry, and your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give your bondservants the prophets, their reward, as well as to the saints, and those who fear your name, to the small and the great; and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”

11:19 God’s temple that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant was seen in his temple. Lightnings, sounds, thunders, an earthquake, and great hail followed.