3 Bible Verses About Age Differences (NIV)

¹ Send lambs as tribute to the ruler of the land, from Sela, across the desert, to the mount of the Daughter of Zion. ² Like fluttering birds pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of the Arnon. ³ "Give us counsel, render a decision. Make your shadow like night- at high noon. Hide the fugitives, do not betray the refugees. ⁴ Let the Moabite fugitives stay with you; be their shelter from the destroyer." The oppressor will come to an end, and destruction will cease; the aggressor will vanish from the land. ⁵ In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it- one from the house of David- one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness. ⁶ We have heard of Moab's pride- her overweening pride and conceit, her pride and her insolence- but her boasts are empty. ⁷ Therefore the Moabites wail, they wail together for Moab. Lament and grieve for the men of Kir Hareseth. ⁸ The fields of Heshbon wither, the vines of Sibmah also. The rulers of the nations have trampled down the choicest vines, which once reached Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots spread out and went as far as the sea. ⁹ So I weep, as Jazer weeps, for the vines of Sibmah. O Heshbon, O Elealeh, I drench you with tears! The shouts of joy over your ripened fruit and over your harvests have been stilled. ¹⁰ Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards; no one treads out wine at the presses, for I have put an end to the shouting. ¹¹ My heart laments for Moab like a harp, my inmost being for Kir Hareseth. ¹² When Moab appears at her high place, she only wears herself out; when she goes to her shrine to pray, it is to no avail. ¹³ This is the word the LORD has already spoken concerning Moab. ¹⁴ But now the LORD says: "Within three years, as a servant bound by contract would count them, Moab's splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble."

¹ Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled! Add year to year and let your cycle of festivals go on. ² Yet I will besiege Ariel; she will mourn and lament, she will be to me like an altar hearth. ³ I will encamp against you all around; I will encircle you with towers and set up my siege works against you. ⁴ Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper. ⁵ But your many enemies will become like fine dust, the ruthless hordes like blown chaff. Suddenly, in an instant, ⁶ the LORD Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm and tempest and flames of a devouring fire. ⁷ Then the hordes of all the nations that fight against Ariel, that attack her and her fortress and besiege her, will be as it is with a dream, with a vision in the night- ⁸ as when a hungry man dreams that he is eating, but he awakens, and his hunger remains; as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking, but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched. So will it be with the hordes of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion. ⁹ Be stunned and amazed, blind yourselves and be sightless; be drunk, but not from wine, stagger, but not from beer. ¹⁰ The LORD has brought over you a deep sleep: He has sealed your eyes (the prophets); he has covered your heads (the seers). ¹¹ For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I can't; it is sealed." ¹² Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, "Read this, please," he will answer, "I don't know how to read." ¹³ The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. ¹⁴ Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish." ¹⁵ Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, "Who sees us? Who will know?" ¹⁶ You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me"? Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing"? ¹⁷ In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field and the fertile field seem like a forest? ¹⁸ In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. ¹⁹ Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. ²⁰ The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down- ²¹ those who with a word make a man out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice. ²² Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house of Jacob: "No longer will Jacob be ashamed; no longer will their faces grow pale. ²³ When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. ²⁴ Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction."

¹ An oracle concerning Moab: Ar in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! Kir in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! ² Dibon goes up to its temple, to its high places to weep; Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba. Every head is shaved and every beard cut off. ³ In the streets they wear sackcloth; on the roofs and in the public squares they all wail, prostrate with weeping. ⁴ Heshbon and Elealeh cry out, their voices are heard all the way to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out, and their hearts are faint. ⁵ My heart cries out over Moab; her fugitives flee as far as Zoar, as far as Eglath Shelishiyah. They go up the way to Luhith, weeping as they go; on the road to Horonaim they lament their destruction. ⁶ The waters of Nimrim are dried up and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone and nothing green is left. ⁷ So the wealth they have acquired and stored up they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars. ⁸ Their outcry echoes along the border of Moab; their wailing reaches as far as Eglaim, their lamentation as far as Beer Elim. ⁹ Dimon's waters are full of blood, but I will bring still more upon Dimon - a lion upon the fugitives of Moab and upon those who remain in the land.