Prophecy

¹⁹ We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

²⁰ Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation.

²¹ For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to him.

¹⁰ Concerning this salvation, the prophets who foretold the grace to come to you searched and investigated carefully,

¹¹ trying to determine the time and setting to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

¹² It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they foretold the things now announced by those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him.

²⁰ Do not treat prophecies with contempt,

²¹ but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD and the message does not come to pass or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

“Here is My Servant, whom I uphold, My Chosen One, in whom My soul delights. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will bring justice to the nations.

Behold, the former things have happened, and now I declare new things. Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

²⁶ Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and then to enter His glory?”

²⁷ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself.

Early in the morning they got up and left for the Wilderness of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Hear me, O people of Judah and Jerusalem. Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be upheld; believe in His prophets, and you will succeed.”

The Spirit of the LORD spoke through me; His word was on my tongue.

‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

¹ Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

² He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him.

By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and who can recount His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; He was stricken for the transgression of My people.

⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by the same Spirit,

⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,

¹⁰ to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in various tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.

¹ Earnestly pursue love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.

² For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries in the Spirit.

³ But he who prophesies speaks to men for their edification, encouragement, and comfort.

⁴ The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophesies edifies the church.

⁵ I wish that all of you could speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church may be edified.

For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.”

¹ Beloved, this is now my second letter to you. Both of them are reminders to stir you to wholesome thinking

² by recalling what was foretold by the holy prophets and commanded by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

¹⁷ I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come forth from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel. He will crush the skulls of Moab and strike down all the sons of Sheth.

¹⁸ Edom will become a possession, as will Seir, his enemy; but Israel will perform with valor.

¹⁹ A ruler will come from Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city.”

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes and the allegiance of the nations is his.

The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so He did not open His mouth.

So all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the LORD.

When Saul and his servant arrived at Gibeah, a group of prophets met him. Then the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied along with them.

²² In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom and to put it in writing as follows:

²³ “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has appointed me to build a house for Him at Jerusalem in Judah. Whoever among you belongs to His people, may the LORD his God be with him, and may he go up.’”

And when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.

¹⁰ Since that time, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face—

¹¹ no prophet who did all the signs and wonders that the LORD sent Moses to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his officials and all his land,

Later, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was over them.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.

At this, Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same. God has revealed to Pharaoh what He is about to do.

Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.

⁸ The prophets of old who preceded you and me prophesied war, disaster, and plague against many lands and great kingdoms.

⁹ As for the prophet who prophesies peace, only if the word of the prophet comes true will the prophet be recognized as one the LORD has truly sent.”

⁸ For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “Do not be deceived by the prophets and diviners among you, and do not listen to the dreams you elicit from them.

⁹ For they are falsely prophesying to you in My name; I have not sent them, declares the LORD.”

“Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion. See, your King is coming, seated on the colt of a donkey.”

²⁰ Then He rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on Him,

²¹ and He began by saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:

²³ “Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us”).

¹⁴ So he got up, took the Child and His mother by night, and withdrew to Egypt,

¹⁵ where he stayed until the death of Herod. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”

¹⁶ When Herod saw that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was filled with rage. Sending orders, he put to death all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, according to the time he had learned from the Magi.

¹⁷ Then what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

¹⁸ “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took on our infirmities and carried our diseases.”