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A reading from the book of Isaiah. Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it. I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord. That is my name, My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Behold, the former things have come to pass and new things I now declare. Before they spring forth, I tell you of them, sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth. You who go down to the sea and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants. Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice. The villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the habitants of Selah sing for joy. Let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord and declare his praise. In the coastlands the Lord goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war. He stirs up his zeal. He cries out. He shouts aloud. He shows himself mighty against his foes. For a long time I have held my peace. I. I have kept still and restrained myself. Now I will cry out like a woman in labor. I will gasp and pant. I will lay waste mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation. I will turn the rivers into islands and dry up the pools. And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known. I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do and. And I do not forsake them. They are turned back and utterly put to shame. Who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, you are our gods. Hear you deaf and look you blind, that you may see who Is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send, who was blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord. He sees many things, but does not observe them. His ears are open, but he does not hear. The Lord was pleased for his righteousness sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious. But this is a people plundered and looted. They are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons. They have become plunder, with none to rescue, spoil, with none to say restore. Who among you will give ear to this? Will attend and listen for the time to come. Who gave up Jacob to the looter and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord against whom we have sinned? In whose ways they would not walk and whose law they would not obey? So he poured on them the heat of his anger and the might of battle. It set him on fire all around. But he did not understand. It burned him up, but he did not take it to heart. But now, thus says the Lord. He who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you, because you are precious in my eyes and honored and I love you. I give men in return for you peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north give up, and to the south do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made, bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears. All the nations gather together and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right. And let them hear and say it is true. You are my witnesses, declares the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior. I declared and Saved and proclaimed when there was no strange God among you. And you are my witnesses, declares the Lord. And I am God also. Henceforth I am he. There is none who can deliver from my hand I work. And who can turn it back? Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. For your sake I send to Babylon and bring them all down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans and the ships in which they rejoice. I am the Lord. Who? Your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your king. Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior. They lie down, they cannot rise. They are extinguished, quenched like a wick. Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise. Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob, but you have been weary of me, O Israel. You have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings or honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with offerings or wearied you with frankincense. You have not bought me sweet cane with money or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities. I. I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. And I will not remember your sins. Put me in remembrance. Let us argue together. Set forth your case that you may be proved right. Your first father sinned and your mediators transgressed against me. Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary and deliver Jacob to utter destruction and Israel to reviling. A reading from the Book of Psalms. Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. For the Lord is a great God and. And a great king above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth. The heights of the mountain are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God. And we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on the day at Massa in the wilderness. And when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work for 40 years, I loathed that generation and said, they are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways. Therefore I swore in my wrath. They shall not enter my rest. A reading from the Book of Acts. And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, no, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And he said, into what then were you baptized? They said, into John's baptism. And Paul said, john baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them. And they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about 12 men in all. And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick. And their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them. Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize. But who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all. And the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled also. Many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them, and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Now, after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome. And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way for a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades, and said, men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia. This Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship. When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Astarchus Macedonians, who were Paul's companions in travel. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the the disciples would not let him, and even some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jewish for about two hours, they all cried out with one voice, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky. Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. If, therefore, Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion. And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.
Episode: October 12, 2025
Readings: Isaiah 42–43, Psalm 95, Acts 19
This episode of "Through the ESV Bible in a Year" features Jackie Hill Perry as she reads selected passages from the Old Testament (Isaiah 42–43), the Psalms (Psalm 95), and the New Testament (Acts 19). The readings together reflect God’s faithfulness, justice, and power—from Isaiah’s promises of a Servant bringing justice, to Psalm 95’s call to worship and warning against hard-heartedness, to Acts 19’s dramatic account of the gospel’s impact in Ephesus. The episode demonstrates the theme of God as Redeemer and the unstoppable nature of His work among His people.
The Servant’s Mission (00:01–02:14)
Divine Power and Promise (02:14–03:30)
Redemption and Restoration (03:30–05:44)
Joyful Worship (05:45–06:13)
Admonition Against Hardness of Heart (06:13–07:01)
Receiving the Holy Spirit (07:02–08:18)
Ministry, Opposition, and Miracles (08:19–11:00)
Confrontation with Magic and Evil Spirits (11:01–12:30)
Idolatry, Economics, and Riot in Ephesus (12:30–16:20)
On God’s Servant:
“A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.” (00:13, Isaiah 42:3)
Divine Assurance:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” (03:40, Isaiah 43:1)
God’s Exclusive Identity:
“Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.” (04:40, Isaiah 43:10–11)
Invitation to Worship:
“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.” (05:46, Psalm 95:1)
Reality of False Exorcism:
“Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” (11:15, Acts 19:15)
Public Repentance and Revival:
“A number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.” (12:10, Acts 19:19)
Mob Mentality in Ephesus:
“Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (13:25, Acts 19:28, repeated)
This episode powerfully links Old Testament prophecy, wisdom literature, and the New Testament church’s growth:
The readings remind listeners of God’s enduring faithfulness, the radical implications of the gospel, and the call to worship and obey Him alone, even in the face of opposition or prevailing cultural norms.