In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

    “We have a strong city;
        he sets up salvation
        as walls and bulwarks.
    Open the gates,
        that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
    You keep him in perfect peace
        whose mind is stayed on you,
        because he trusts in you.
    Trust in the LORD forever,
        for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock.
    For he has humbled
        the inhabitants of the height,
        the lofty city.
    He lays it low, lays it low to the ground,
        casts it to the dust.
    The foot tramples it,
        the feet of the poor,
        the steps of the needy.”
    
    
    The path of the righteous is level;
        you make level the way of the righteous.
    In the path of your judgments,
        O LORD, we wait for you;
    your name and remembrance
        are the desire of our soul.
    My soul yearns for you in the night;
        my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
    For when your judgments are in the earth,
        the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
    If favor is shown to the wicked,
        he does not learn righteousness;
    in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly
        and does not see the majesty of the LORD.
    O LORD, your hand is lifted up,
        but they do not see it.
    Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.
        Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.
    O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,
        for you have indeed done for us all our works.
    O LORD our God,
        other lords besides you have ruled over us,
        but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
    They are dead, they will not live;
        they are shades, they will not arise;
    to that end you have visited them with destruction
        and wiped out all remembrance of them.
    But you have increased the nation, O LORD,
        you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
        you have enlarged all the borders of the land.
    
    
    O LORD, in distress they sought you;
        they poured out a whispered prayer
        when your discipline was upon them.
    Like a pregnant woman
        who writhes and cries out in her pangs
        when she is near to giving birth,
    so were we because of you, O LORD;
        we were pregnant, we writhed,
        but we have given birth to wind.
    We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
        and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
    Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
        You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
    For your dew is a dew of light,
        and the earth will give birth to the dead.
    
    
    Come, my people, enter your chambers,
        and shut your doors behind you;
    hide yourselves for a little while
        until the fury has passed by.
    For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place
        to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,
    and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
        and will no more cover its slain.
    
    
      In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.

    In that day,
    “A pleasant vineyard, sing of it!
        I, the LORD, am its keeper;
        every moment I water it.
        Lest anyone punish it,
    I keep it night and day;
        I have no wrath.
    Would that I had thorns and briers to battle!
        I would march against them,
        I would burn them up together.
    Or let them lay hold of my protection,
        let them make peace with me,
        let them make peace with me.”
    
    
    In days to come Jacob shall take root,
        Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots
        and fill the whole world with fruit.
    
    
    Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them?
        Or have they been slain as their slayers were slain?
    Measure by measure, by exile you contended with them;
        he removed them with his fierce breath in the day of the east wind.
    Therefore by this the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,
        and this will be the full fruit of the removal of his sin:
    when he makes all the stones of the altars
        like chalkstones crushed to pieces,
        no Asherim or incense altars will remain standing.
    For the fortified city is solitary,
        a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness;
    there the calf grazes;
        there it lies down and strips its branches.
    When its boughs are dry, they are broken;
        women come and make a fire of them.
    For this is a people without discernment;
        therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them;
        he who formed them will show them no favor.
    
    
      In that day from the river Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt the LORD will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel. And in that day a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD on the holy mountain at Jerusalem. (ESV)

And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.” And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”

  Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks.

  The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.” (ESV)