Day 204: Zephaniah's Warnings (2026)

**Fr. Mike Schmitz** (0:04)
Hi, my name is Fr. Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to The Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using The Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 204, and we are reading Isaiah 28 and 29, Zephaniah 1 and 2, as well as Proverbs 11, verses 9 through 12 The Bible translation that I am reading from is the revised standard version, the second Catholic edition. I'm using The Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com/bible in a Year. You can also subscribe to this podcast if you'd like to get daily episodes and updates and all those kinds of things.
Nonetheless, today is day 204 As I said, we are starting Zephaniah 1 and 2 Zephaniah is a four-chapter Book of Prophecy and it is great. You're going to love it. As well as Isaiah 28 and 29 in Proverbs 11, verses 9 through 12
The Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 28 Warning to Jerusalem. Woe to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley of those overcome with wine. Behold, the Lord has one who is mighty and strong, like a storm of hail, a destroying tempest, like a storm of mighty overflowing waters. He will cast down to the earth with violence. The proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden underfoot, and the fading flower of its glorious beauty, which is on the head of the rich valley, will be like a first ripe fig before summer. When a man sees it, he eats it up as soon as it is in his hand.
In that day, the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people, and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are confused with wine. They stagger with strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in giving judgment. For all tables are full of vomit. No place is without filthiness. Whom will he teach knowledge? And to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk? Those taken from the breast? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. No. But by men of strange lips and with an alien tongue, the Lord will speak to this people, to whom he has said, This is rest. Give rest to the weary, and this is repose. Yet they would not hear.
Therefore, the word of the Lord will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers, who rule this people in Jerusalem, because you have said, we have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation. He who believes will not be in haste, and I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet, and hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter.
Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it. As often as it passes through, it will take you. For morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night, and it will be sheer terror to understand the message. For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in it. For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim. He will rage as in the valley of Gibeon, to do his deed, strange is his deed, and to work his work, alien is his work. Now therefore, do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong. For I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord God of hosts upon the whole land. Give ear and hear my voice, listen and hear my speech. Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground? When he has leveled its surface, does he not scatter dill, sow cumin, and put in wheat, in rose, and barley in its proper place, and spelt as the border? For he is instructed rightly. His God teaches him. Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin. But dill is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod. Does one crush bread grain? No, he does not thresh it forever. When he drives his cartwheel over it with his horses, he does not crush it. This also comes from the Lord of Hosts. He is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.