Deuteronomy 28:20~68, Psalm 119:25~48, Isaiah 55, Matthew 3

Deuteronomy 28:20~68,

20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.
 
21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.
 
22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.
 
23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.
 
24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.
 
25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.
 
26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
 
27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.
 
28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.
 
29 At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.
 
30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.
 
31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.
 
32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand.
 
33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days.
 
34 The sights you see will drive you mad.
 
35 The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
 
36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.
 
37 You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you.
 
38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it.
 
39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.
 
40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.
 
41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity.
 
42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.
 
43 The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.
 
44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.
 
45 All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.
 
46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.
 
47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity,
 
48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
 
49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,
 
50 a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young.
 
51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.
 
52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you.
 
53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you.
 
54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children,
 
55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.
 
56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you-so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot-will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter
 
57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.
 
58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name-the LORD your God-
 
59 the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.
 
60 He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
 
61 The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.
 
62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God.
 
63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
 
64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods-gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
 
65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.
 
66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.
 
67 In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!"-because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.
 
68 The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

Psalm 119:25~48,

25 I am laid low in the dust; preserve my life according to your word.
 
26 I recounted my ways and you answered me; teach me your decrees.
 
27 Let me understand the teaching of your precepts; then I will meditate on your wonders.
 
28 My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.
 
29 Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law.
 
30 I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws.
 
31 I hold fast to your statutes, O LORD; do not let me be put to shame.
 
32 I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.
 
33 Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end.
 
34 Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.
 
35 Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.
 
36 Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain.
 
37 Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.
 
38 Fulfill your promise to your servant, so that you may be feared.
 
39 Take away the disgrace I dread, for your laws are good.
 
40 How I long for your precepts! Preserve my life in your righteousness.
 
41 May your unfailing love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise;
 
42 then I will answer the one who taunts me, for I trust in your word.
 
43 Do not snatch the word of truth from my mouth, for I have put my hope in your laws.
 
44 I will always obey your law, for ever and ever.
 
45 I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.
 
46 I will speak of your statutes before kings and will not be put to shame,
 
47 for I delight in your commands because I love them.
 
48 I lift up my hands to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.

Isaiah 55,

1 Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
 
2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
 
3 Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
 
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander of the peoples.
 
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor."
 
6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.
 
7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
 
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
 
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
 
10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
 
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
 
12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
 
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD's renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed."

Matthew 3

1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea
 
2 and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."
 
3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: "A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.' "
 
4 John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.
 
5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.
 
6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
 
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
 
8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
 
9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
 
10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
 
11 "I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
 
12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
 
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.
 
14 But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"
 
15 Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.
 
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.
 
17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."