For it was fitting for him, for whom and through whom all things exist, ¹  in bringing many sons to glory, to make the pioneer ²  of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you ¹  about our common salvation, I now feel compelled ²  instead to write to encourage ³  you to contend earnestly ⁴  for the faith ⁵  that was once for all ⁶  entrusted to the saints. ⁷ 

Guide me into your truth ¹  and teach me. For you are the God who delivers me; on you I rely all day long.

But I will keep watching for the Lord; I will wait for the God who delivers me. My God will hear my lament. ¹ 

The Lord ¹  is my strength and my song, ²  and he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, ³  my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

Now ascend, O Lord God, to your resting place, you and the ark of your strength! May your priests, O Lord God, experience your deliverance! ¹  May your loyal followers rejoice in the prosperity you give! ² 

At that time they will say, ¹  “Look, here ²  is our God! We waited for him and he delivered us. Here ³  is the Lord! We waited for him. Let’s rejoice and celebrate his deliverance!”

I am ready to vindicate, ¹  I am ready to deliver, ²  I will establish justice among the nations. ³  The coastlands ⁴  wait patiently for me; they wait in anticipation for the revelation of my power. ⁵ 

For a moth will eat away at them like clothes; a clothes moth will devour them like wool. But the vindication I provide ¹  will be permanent; the deliverance I give will last.”

How delightful it is to see approaching over the mountains ¹  the feet of a messenger who announces peace, a messenger who brings good news, who announces deliverance, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” ² 

The Lord reveals ¹  his royal power ²  in the sight of all the nations; the entire ³  earth sees our God deliver. ⁴ 

He wears his desire for justice ¹  like body armor, ²  and his desire to deliver is like a helmet on his head. ³  He puts on the garments of vengeance ⁴  and wears zeal like a robe.

Sounds of violence ¹  will no longer be heard in your land, or the sounds of ²  destruction and devastation within your borders. You will name your walls, ‘Deliverance,’ and your gates, ‘Praise.’

“For the sake of Zion I will not be silent; for the sake of Jerusalem ¹  I will not be quiet, until her vindication shines brightly ²  and her deliverance burns like a torch.”

I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, ¹  did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel ²  jealous.

And do this ¹  because we know ²  the time, that it is already the hour for us to awake from sleep, for our salvation is now nearer than when we became believers.

And when ¹  you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) – when you believed in Christ ²  – you were marked with the seal ³  of the promised Holy Spirit, ⁴ 

So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence, ¹ 

But we ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters ¹  loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning ²  for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, ¹  just as also our dear brother Paul ²  wrote to you, ³  according to the wisdom given to him,