Prophets II Catholic Bible study Lesson 17

Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks
Through His Servants the Prophets

Volume II: Restoration & Redemption

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)*
New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)*
Catechism of the Catholic Church
ex libris (in our library)
glossary for Thus Says the LORD—Volume II
cross references in Thus Says the LORD—Volume II
next lesson: Daniel: A Model Jew

This online supplemental material coordinates with the lesson on pages 116–123 of Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I intend
and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
—the Book of Isaiah 55:10–11 (RSVCE)**

welcome to Volume II of our in-depth study of the biblical prophets
We invite you to check out the sample first lesson and video from Volume II of this Turning to God’s Word two-part Catholic Bible study. Our online pages link to the free related lesson videos, a glossary, and cross references in the biblical text, and include maps, additional commentary, and prayers based on the primary Scripture in each lesson. Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption contains 23 lessons and has been granted an imprimatur. It may be purchased from our website shop. The companion 28-lesson Volume I: A Kingdom Divided also is available for purchase. If you have a Bible-study question or comment, click on the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” button on any study page.

open with prayer
It’s always wise to begin any Bible study with prayer, whether reading the Scriptures alone or meeting with others in a discussion study group. You can pray using your own words or use one of the opening prayers on our website. We especially like the following:

Lord Jesus, you promised to send your Holy Spirit
to teach us all things.
As we read and study your word today,
allow it to touch our hearts and change our lives. Amen.

let’s review—the Book of Malachi 1:1—4:6
Lesson 16 Malachi: The Final Prophetic Word in the Old Testament looks at how this Old Testament prophet’s message indicates a shift in the relationship between God and the descendants of Israel. The priests of Malachi’s time are harshly criticized for failing to uphold rules concerning sacrifices and for failing to model and teach covenant law. The prophet’s message will show up again in the New Testament with the appearance of John (called the Baptist in the synoptic Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Christians view Malachi’s reference to Moses and to God’s promise to send Elijah before the great and awesome day of the LORD as setting the stage for the arrival of Jesus.

map notes—how Rome gained a toehold in Judea
Rome’s control of Judea was inevitable, but it’s at the invitation of the Maccabees that the Romans get involved in the region. The eighth chapter of the First Book of the Maccabees describes Judas Maccabeus seeking ties with Rome to deal with the unwelcome Seleucids, who gained control over Judea after infighting with the Ptolemies following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. The Maccabees clashed with the Seleucids over issues of religious freedom tied to the Seleucids’ desire to Hellenize all of their empire. Click on the map (right) to enlarge it. The original map is on page 121 of the second volume of Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption.

more map notes
Many Old Testament locations are unfamiliar to present-day readers. You can learn more about these places by referring to our online glossary, which lists definitions and the meaning of the names for the proper nouns included in the biblical text for Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption. The following information pertains to a few of the places mentioned in this lesson.

Kittim Not many readers are familiar with the land of Kittim mentioned in the First Book of the Maccabees 1:1. The location is better known in the present day as the island of Cyprus, which is located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Macedon (also called Macedonia) This ancient kingdom spanned parts of Greece and the Balkan Peninsula. Inhabitants of Macedon are called Macedonians, which means “highlanders.” The most famous of the Macedonians are Philip and his son, Alexander the Great. They usually are described as Macedonian Greeks.
Antioch An ancient Greek city located in Syria, Antioch was built by Seleucus I and named to honor his father Antiochus. Seleucus’ son and successor also was named Antiochus. Antioch rivaled Alexandria in Egypt as a major center of Greek culture. It’s mentioned in the First Book of the Maccabees 4:35.

the transition from the Babylonian Exile to the time of Jesus (52:07)
In the video for this lesson, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps examines the First and Second Books of the Maccabees, which explain how the people of Judea get swept up in the broader political chaos of the region after the death of Alexander the Great. Although the Maccabees aren’t strictly prophets, they’re relevant to our study. Once they start speaking boldly for God and opposing all efforts to disrupt traditional worship, they take on the prophetic role of speaking for the LORD. The First Book of the Maccabees 1:3 records that after Alexander had plundered many nations, “he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up,” contradicting a report from the ancient Greek philosopher and respected historian Plutarch, who wrote that when Alexander saw the breadth of his empire, he wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. This discrepancy emphasizes that no work of history is infallible. While it’s impossible to know which historical record is more accurate—the First Book of the Maccabees or the writings of Plutarch—the Church teaches that it’s important to make a distinction between what Scripture says about God and what it says about history. Only what the Bible tells us about God is infallible.

The Scripture ranges for the videos that accompany this Catholic Bible study match the ranges for the sets of questions in Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption. You can follow along as Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps discusses Lesson 17, “Greek Influences Threaten Judaism,” on pages 116–123 in the study book.

about the Books of the Maccabees
The First and Second Books of the Maccabees are deuterocanonical books, which means that they’re included in the Catholic canon of Scripture but aren’t found in most Protestant Bibles. Protestants generally refer to these and other deuterocanonical books as apocryphal. You can learn more about this difference between Catholic and Protestant Bibles by reading the vocabulary box “Apocrypha” on page 68 in Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption. Similar material is covered in How Do Catholic & Protestant Bibles Differ?

why the Books of the Maccabees are in this study
The First and Second Books of the Maccabees are viewed as historical rather than prophetic books. They offer information about the political situation in the region of Judea during the time immediately preceding the Incarnation of Jesus, and they describe some of the main figures involved in events of that time. Familiarity with the Books of the Maccabees can help readers transition from the Babylonian Exile to the time of Jesus in the New Testament. The First and Second Books of the Maccabees can be difficult to read, however, because they’re not written as back-to-back volumes of history. The First Book of the Maccabees deals with straightforward history in chronological order. Instead of continuing that history, the Second Book of the Maccabees instead focuses on personal stories about how individual people react to events taking place and described in the First Book of the Maccabees.

history lesson—how Greek language & culture became dominant in the ancient world
Alexander the Great began the spread of Greek culture throughout his vast empire, and after his death the generals who divided his territory continued to encourage Greek practices in the areas they ruled. The Seleucids’ insistence that Jews abandon their traditional religion to worship Greek gods caused a major rift in Judea. The Septuagint, however, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures commissioned by Alexander, was, until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the oldest version of the Old Testament available to scholars. It also was the version of the Hebrew Scriptures that was in common use in Judea and Galilee at the time of Jesus. You can learn more in the archived entry for Septuagint in the Lost in Translation archives.

where & when did the Seleucids & the Ptolemies rule?
Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., his general Seleucus Nicator began ruling territory that included modern Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, together with parts of Turkey, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. This enormous empire had two capitals, one at Antioch in Syria and the other at Seleucia in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). The Seleucid dynasty held sway in the region for the two centuries preceding the rise of the Roman Empire in 30 B.C. Also at the death of Alexander the Great, his general Ptolemy I began ruling in Egypt. In 305 B.C., Ptolemy declared himself Pharaoh, and he took the name Soter, which means savior. The Ptolemies reigned in Egypt until the death of Cleopatra, an event that ushered in the rise of the Roman Empire in 30 B.C.

Judea is caught in the middle
The division of Alexander the Great’s empire into parts set off a period of intense conflict as various factions attempted to gain control over the ancient world. The descendants of Jacob in Judea were caught in the middle, with no military power of their own to resist foreign domination. Although they first fell under the rule of the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Seleucid rulers to the north rather quickly took control of Jerusalem and Judea during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes (Antiochus IV).

when did Antiochus Epiphanes come into power?
The First Book of the Maccabees 1:10 and the Second Book of the Maccabees 4:7 both mention the ascent of Antiochus Epiphanes as ruler of the Seleucid Empire in the 137th year of the kingdom of the Greeks, which historians translate to 175 B.C.—less than 200 years before Jesus’ birth. The occupation of Judea by the Seleucids brought great distress to Jews attempting to practice their faith there.

Antiochus Epiphanes was not a very nice guy
What the biblical text fails to mention is that in order to ascend to the throne, Antiochus Epiphanes murdered his brother, Seleucus IV. In Judea, Antiochus immediately installed as high priest a man named Jason, who obtained the post through a generous bribe. Three years later Antiochus replaced Jason with Menelaus, who had offered an even larger bribe. In 169 B.C., Antiochus had the Temple at Jerusalem looted. In 168 B.C. he had the walls of Jerusalem torn down, a large number of Jews killed, and any copies of the Hebrew Scriptures he could lay his hands on destroyed. He and his soldiers brought prostitutes into the Temple where they had sex with them, and he sentenced to death anyone who observed Jewish religious traditions. Finally, Antiochus offered a pig to Zeus on the altar of God. His blatant disregard for the religious beliefs and practices of the Jewish people set the stage for the Jewish rebellion known as the Maccabean Revolt, led by the pious family of a priest named Mattathias. The Seleucid Empire eventually lost dominance in the region, due in a large part to repeated skirmishes with the Roman Republic. In 141 B.C. the Maccabees founded the Hasmonean dynasty and ruled Judea until 63 B.C., at which time their kingdom came under the control of the Romans.

what Matthew says—a broader purpose to the covenant
The second chapter in the First Book of the Maccabees introduces the devout and zealous priest Mattathias, and the narrative moves from a macro view of history to the micro-drama showing how one individual—or a very few, in this case the family of Mattathias—can change the fate of a nation. Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps points out that by recording the willingness of Mattathias and his family to die for their faith, this section of Scripture focuses on the way in which the covenant governs life and death. The descendants of Jacob are beginning to understand that there’s a broader purpose to the life promised by the covenant, and immortality starts to emerge as a possibility long before Jesus’ sacrifice establishes that eternal life is an option open to humanity. Events described in the Books of the Maccabees indicate that God’s people have undergone a major change in mindset. Without the prophetic understanding that comes from the LORD, who could even begin to consider such a thing as the possibility of human immortality? At this point in salvation history, there suddenly are people willing to try to hold to the covenant with God even at the cost of their own lives. This is a necessary bridge in thinking that needs to occur before the Incarnation. Those descendants of Jacob willing to speak the truth at any cost exhibit the same spirit as individual prophets. They aren’t prophets, but they’re preparing the way for the idea that through the sacrament of Baptism into the body of Christ all men and woman can take on the roles of prophet, priest, and king.

biblical vocabulary—blasphemy
In the First Book of the Maccabees 2:6, Mattathias bemoans the blasphemies he sees being committed in Jerusalem and Judah. The word blasphemy derives from the Greek (blasphemeo), which means “to slander” or “to speak ill of.” In the context of the First Book of the Maccabees blasphemy means sacrilegious speech. In the New Testament Gospels, blasphemy is cited as the reason that Jesus is condemned to death by the Jewish religious leaders, although Jesus’ claim to be God is only blasphemy if he isn’t divine. If Jesus actually is God, then when he claims divinity he’s simply telling the truth. You can learn more in the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Jesus’ Passion: The Story of Redemptive Suffering, available free on our website each year during Lent.

read the Catechism—apostasy
The Greek word translated as apostasy is (parapipto), which literally means “fall beside” and came to mean “abandon” or “defect.” Apostasy in the First Book of the Maccabees 2:15 refers to foreign rulers’ insistence that descendants of Jacob renounce the faith of their ancestors and “fall back” into irreligious practices they engaged in prior to the Babylonian Exile. Apostasy is defined in paragraph 2089 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as the total repudiation of the Christian faith. The Catechism explains how apostasy differs from three other sins against the faith—incredulity, heresy, and schism.

2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. “Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”

zeal & martyr—you could look it up in our archives
The Greek word ζῆλος (zelos) and the Hebrew word קִנְאָה (qinah) have the same root—jealousy. Having “zeal” means being “jealous.” The root of the word “martyr” means “to bear witness.” The First Book of the Maccabees 2:24 describes Mattathias burning with zeal when he sees another Jew cooperating with Seleucid authorities to offer a sacrifice that contradicts Jewish religious law. Underlying the First and Second Books of the Maccabees is a new development in the history of the descendants of Jacob—the willingness of large numbers of the people to die for their faith. In Lost in Translation, an online column that can help readers connect with ideas expressed in the original languages of the Scriptures, Turning to God’s Word author Matthew Phelps looks at the linguistic roots behind the words “zeal” and “martyr.” New Lost in Translation entries are posted on Mondays, and past entries are archived on our website. Contact us if you’d like to receive Lost in Translation by email every week.

Mattathias’ farewell address to his sons
In the First Book of the Maccabees 2:49, the dying Mattathias urges his sons to hold onto their zeal for the law of the covenant. It can be easy to miss that this introduces a passage that deliberately appears to echo patriarchal farewell addresses. The author’s point seems to be that the nation founded when God entered into covenant with Abraham is being re-founded. In the past, the descendants of Jacob established their nation by violence, fighting for land and material goods. That now has changed, and Mattathias is bringing about a re-founding of the nation not by initiating violence but by being willing to die for his faith. As Mattathias is dying, he encourages his sons to take up the cause.

do you think that the prophet Malachi was right?
In his farewell discourse in the First Book of the Maccabees 2:49, Mattathias mentions that there are many arrogant people in Judea, suggesting a strong need for the warning to the arrogant that appears in the Book of Malachi 4:1. Consider whether such a warning is of any relevance in the present-day secular world. Is there any evidence that Christians might also need to be warned about arrogance?

HOW DO CHRISTIANS PREPARE for spiritual battle?
The third chapter in the First Book of the Maccabees describes the sons of Mattathias preparing to fight Seleucid forces. They do this in a way reminiscent of the first earthly kings to rule the descendants of Jacob, who consulted with prophets and with God before entering into any battle.

? According to the author of the First Book of the Maccabees, why did the sons of Mattathias and their followers choose Mizpah as the place to prepare for their military showdown with the Seleucids?
? Consider what differs about the way that the Seleucids and the way that the Maccabees prepare for battle.
? What might be motivating the Maccabees’ preparation?
? What takeaway message can present-day Christians gain from reading about how the Maccabees prepare to meet their enemies?
? What are greatest religious challenges faced by present-day Christians?
? How might following the example of the Maccabees help Christians to be successful in overcoming these challenges?

institution of a major Jewish feast
The First Book of the Maccabees 4:34–59 describes events that annually are commemorated in Hanukkah, a major Jewish religious festival whose foundational history is recorded in this deuterocanonical book. All of the other major Jewish feasts are established in the twenty-third chapter of the book of Leviticus. The feast of Hanukkah also is described in the Jewish Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law. The Talmud consists of the Mishnah, the oral Torah in written form, and the Gemara, which expounds on the Mishnah and the Old Testament. You can learn more in the vocabulary box “Hanukkah” on page 123 of Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption.

the Maccabees initiated the alliance with Rome
It’s easy to miss how the descendants of Jacob came under rule of the Romans. In their eagerness to get rid of the oppressive Seleucids, the descendants of Jacob established ties with Rome. The eighth chapter of the First Book of the Maccabees explains that a man named Eupolemus was dispatched to Rome by Judas Maccabeus to form an alliance with the Romans. By the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire controls Judea. When reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life in the New Testament, it can appear that the Romans are terrible overlords. In reality, they’re considerably better than their predecessors, the Seleucids. Although the Roman Empire allows the descendants of Jacob religious freedom, there are many in Judea who long for a king to defeat Rome and restore political autonomy to God’s people. It was the descendants of Jacob who invited the Romans into Judea to begin with, however.

religious martyrs begin to emerge
In what is perhaps the most well-known account of martyrdom in the Old Testament, the seventh chapter in the Second Book of the Maccabees describes a mother who encourages her seven sons to die rather than betray their loyalty to the covenant. She reasons that because God originally gave life to her children, God also is capable of restoring their lives. This marks a change in the way that the covenant with God is understood by his people, with a newfound emphasis on the idea of eternal life. The descendants of Jacob have begun to realize that death is related to opposing God, and this leads them to begin to glimpse the promise and power of their covenant with God. This attitude prepares the way for Jesus and acts as an historical bridge between Ezra’s emphasis on the law and Jesus’ new law in the New Testament. The very dim outlines of what it means for all people to be able to take on the threefold roles of priest, prophet, and king start to become visible. This won’t become a radical reality until Jesus appears on the scene, but the building blocks are starting to be revealed.

how is this relevant?
At the heart of the First and Second Books of the Maccabees is the question about how the people of God can coexist peacefully with foreign rulers who don’t share their Jewish faith. Each lesson in the study book Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption contains commentaries designed to make it easier to reflect on ways that God’s Word applies to present-day Christians.

? What previous experience do the descendants of Jacob have worshiping the LORD under foreign rulers?
? How might the descendants of Jacob share responsibility for the religious persecution they experience under Seleucid rule?
? What can present-day Christians learn from reading the First and Second Books of the Maccabees that might be useful when considering the possibility of merging religious and secular interests?
? Think of areas in which present-day Christians might feel pressure to compromise their faith in order to better fit in with others who don’t share their religious views. What would help them in that situation?
? What is the danger of compromising on small things, and how does this lead to the erosion of identity as Christians?

who’s who in the New Testament
The First and Second Books of the Maccabees describe two important developments in salvation history—opposition to the desecration of the Temple in Jerusalem, and martyrdom of faithful Jews. These last historical books in the Old Testament help to explain the differences between significant divisions within Judaism at the time of Jesus.

Scribes gained legal power when they were appointed as magistrates and judges to the former captives who returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile. The Sadducees, a remnant of the Levitical priesthood, were given responsibility for maintenance of the rebuilt Temple, and they translated this religious authority into shared political power with the scribes. After the Greeks became dominant in the area, it was the Sadducees and scribes who failed to recognize the Hellenistic threat to Jewish culture, even participating in actions designed to erode and destroy traditional Judaism.

The family of the Maccabees staged a successful revolt, eventually founding the Hasmonean dynasty and ruling Judea from 141 to 63 B.C. By the time of Jesus, however, the Romans had taken over. Jews at that time fall into two main religious groups, which bear some resemblance to modern political parties.

The Sadducees are an educated class of Levites who may or may not be priests. The primary duty of the priests continues to be to offer sacrifice. Those Levites who can’t trace their lineage to Aaron qualify instead for such lucrative government jobs as tax collecting. The Sadducees tend to favor change. Scribes and Sadducees often are referred to interchangeably, although the former is a function and the latter essentially amounts to a political party.
The Pharisees blame the Sadducees for allowing foreign influences to nearly destroy Judaism. These rabbis or teachers are a new category of non-priests, ultra-conservative about following the law. Because they don’t trust established religious authorities, many Pharisees are self-educated.
Essenes and Zealots are two offshoots of the Pharisees. The Essenes retire to the desert in order to distance themselves completely from society, while Zealots take the opposite approach and literally fight for liberation from foreign rule.

ex libris—what Jesus teaches us about religious differences
The author of No Irrelevant Jesus: On Jesus and the Church Today, Gerhard Lohfink, a priest and former professor at the University of Tübingen in Germany, addresses a number of ways that Christians water down and trivialize how Jesus is regarded in the secular and Christian worlds. In a chapter on “Jesus and the Shattered People of God,” Lohfink describes about how Jesus dealt with divisions in Judaism. Lohfink also looks at other ways that Jesus is made irrelevant, including present-day attitudes about the expectation of Jesus’ imminent return and Jesus’ clear preaching about judgment. You can read excerpts and learn more about No Irrelevant Jesus: On Jesus and the Church Today and other works related to Bible study at ex libris—main bookshelf.

the Second Book of the Maccabees 7:22–23—paragraph 1032

ways our glossary might prove helpful
In addition to providing extra information about geographical locations, our glossary also points out persons and places mentioned in the biblical text under multiple names or spellings. If you can remember a name but aren’t sure in which lesson it shows up, you can find it in the glossary, which lists every proper noun that appears in the primary biblical text for Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption.

to learn more, read more Scripture
It can help to check out the cross references listed in Scripture, but looking them up is time-consuming. To make that part easier, we’ve compiled the cross references from the Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE)—the translation that we reprint in our study books. That list can be found at the top of every online study page accompanying this study, and it includes links to each of the cross references in the primary biblical text for Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption.

don’t forget about our indexes & extra online material
If you’re trying to locate information about a specific Scripture passage, you can look it up in the index at the back of the study book or sample lesson. If you want to find a particular commentary, you can look up its title in the topics index. To learn more about another book of the Bible for which there’s a Turning to God’s Word study, visit the online study directories to read the commentaries and watch any accompanying videos. Finally, if you have a question or would like to make a comment about any of our studies, you can use one of the “ask us your question” or “what do you think” buttons to email our authors.

ex libris—Church documents & books about religious topics
Link to magisterial documents referred to in our Bible studies at ex libris—magisterial documents. This listing includes significant recent encyclicals as well as a number of historical Church documents. Recommended books related to Scripture study can be found at ex libris—main bookshelf.

wondering how to pronounce some of these words?
All of the primary biblical text for this lesson is taken from the deuterocanonical First and Second Books of the Maccabees, which isn’t included among the readings from the New International Version (NIV) Bible. A close online version of the translation of the Bible used in Catholic liturgy in the United States as well as an audio guide for daily Mass readings for the current month can be found on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

close with Bible-based prayer related to this lesson
Many of our Catholic study groups like to conclude their discussions with a prayer based on the scriptural focus of their lesson, and some participants include Scripture-specific prayer in their individual study. If you’re uncomfortable composing your own Bible-based prayers you can follow our four easy steps, or you can use the following prayer based on this lesson’s biblical texts.

Lord God, Creator of the world,
you formed the human race and everything that exists,
and you give back life and breath again
to all who love your laws more than themselves.
Make our hearts burn with zeal to do the right thing
no matter the consequences,
for contempt for your laws doesn’t go unpunished.
We ask this in union with the Holy Spirit
through your Son, Jesus Christ, who chose
to suffer and die that we might have eternal life. Amen.

you also may like our study of the Gospel According to John
The Gospel According to John: An Encounter with Grace & Truth, a 25-lesson Catholic Bible study with an imprimatur, examines the Fourth Gospel’s view of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, with special emphasis on the institution of the sacraments of the Church as the means by which Christians are purified and made holy. This recently revised study includes maps and additional commentary, and takes a closer look at the way in which Jesus relates to individual men and women. Click on the book’s cover to view a sample lesson.

start a Turning to God’s Word Bible study
Thank you for your interest in Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption. You can find information on this website about beginning a Turning to God’s Word Bible study at start a Bible study. Tami, Matthew, and I are available to answer your questions and address any of your concerns. Contact us if you’d like to start one of our studies or have your schedule listed with other TtGW study groups on our website. —Jennifer

*There are seven deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament—the Books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, as well as some passages in the Books of Esther and Daniel. Protestants usually refer to these works as “apocryphal,” a word that means “outside the (Protestant) canon” because they’re excluded from most Protestant Bibles. The word “deuterocanonical” means “second canon”; Catholics use that word to refer to any section of the Catholic Old Testament for which there are no extant, or existing, Hebrew manuscripts. All of the deuterocanonical books appear in the Septuagint, the earliest remaining versions of which date to the 1st century B.C. This Greek translation of the Old Testament was in common use by Jews at the time of Jesus—but the same books aren’t found in existing Hebrew manuscripts, which aren’t as old as the oldest version of the Septuagint. Learn more by reading How Do Catholic & Protestant Bibles Differ?

Turning to God’s Word printed Bible studies use the 2006 Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition (RSV2CE) translation for all Scripture references except those to the Psalms, which are taken from The Abbey Psalms and Canticles, prepared by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey and published in 2020 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). All Scripture links for the online study pages of Thus Says the LORD: God Speaks Through His Servants the Prophets—Volume II: Restoration & Redemption are to the 1966 Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) translation. The New International Version (NIV) audio recordings follow the same chapter and verse numbering as the RSV Catholic translations, but the NIV translation doesn’t include the deuterocanonical books and passages.

The 1966 RSVCE uses archaic pronouns and verb forms such as “thee,” “thou,” “didst” in the Psalms and in direct quotations attributed to God. The 2006 RSV2CE replaces those with more accessible English. A handful of more significant translation changes in the RSV2CE include rendering almah as “virgin” in the Book of Isaiah 7:14 and restoring the term “begotten” in the Gospel According to John 3:16.

Numbering varies for some passages in this Bible study. Turning to God’s Word studies follow the numbering in the Revised Standard Version Catholic translations (RSVCE and RSV2CE). Discrepancies in the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) are noted in the Index of Scripture Citations in the study book and the online sample.

You can learn more about the Psalms by viewing a sample lesson from the Turning to God’s Word Catholic Bible study Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume I: Lauds & Vespers. The second part of that study, Sing a New Psalm: Communicating with God Through the Prayers of the Church—Volume II: Vigils, Day Prayer & Compline, is scheduled for publication in 2025. Some verse numbers may vary in different translations of the Psalms.

**The Book of Isaiah 55:10-11 (RSV2CE) reads: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I intend, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”