JEREMIAH 14:11-16:15
1 THESSALONIANS 2:9-3:13
PSALM 80:1-19
PROVERBS 25:1-5
JEREMIAH 14:11-16:15
Then the LORD said to me [Jeremiah], " Do not pray for these people anymore. 12 When they fast in my presence, I will pay no attention. When they present their burnt offerings and grain offerings to me, I will not accept them. In return, I will give them only war, famine, and disease." 13 Then I said, " O Sovereign LORD, their prophets are telling them, ` All is well--no war or famine will come. The LORD will surely send you peace.' "14 Then the LORD said, " These prophets are telling lies in my name. I did not send them or tell them to speak. I did not give them any messages. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen or heard. They speak foolishness made up in their own lying hearts. 15 Therefore, says the LORD, I will punish these lying prophets, for they have spoken in my name even though I never sent them. They say that no war or famine will come, but they themselves will die by war and famine! 16 As for the people to whom they prophesy--their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem, victims of famine and war. There will be no one left to bury them. Husbands, wives, sons, and daughters--all will be gone. For I will pour out their own wickedness on them. 17 " Now, Jeremiah, say this to them: ` Night and day my eyes overflow with tears. I cannot stop weeping, for my virgin daughter--my precious people--has been run through with a sword and lies mortally wounded on the ground. 18 If I go out into the fields, I see the bodies of people slaughtered by the enemy. If I walk the city streets, there I see people who have died of starvation. The prophets and priests continue with their work, but they do not know what they are doing.' " 19 LORD, have you completely rejected Judah? Do you really hate Jerusalem? Why have you wounded us past all hope of healing? We hoped for peace, but no peace came. We hoped for a time of healing but found only terror. 20 LORD, we confess our wickedness and that of our ancestors, too. We all have sinned against you. 21 For the sake of your own name, LORD, do not abandon us. Do not disgrace yourself and the throne of your glory. Do not break your covenant with us. Please don't forget us! 22 Can any of the foreign gods send us rain? Does it fall from the sky by itself? No, it comes from you, the LORD our God! Only you can do such things. So we will wait for you to help us.15:1 THEN the LORD said to me, " Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for these people, I wouldn't help them. Away with them! Get them out of my sight! 2 And if they say to you, ` But where can we go?' tell them, ` This is what the LORD says: Those who are destined for death, to death; those who are destined for war, to war; those who are destined for famine, to famine; those who are destined for captivity, to captivity.' 3 " I will send four kinds of destroyers against them," says the LORD. " I will send the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the vultures to devour, and the wild animals to finish up what is left. 4 Because of the wicked things Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem, I will make my people an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 5 " Who will feel sorry for you, Jerusalem? Who will weep for you? Who will even bother to ask how you are? 6 You have forsaken me and turned your back on me," says the LORD. " Therefore, I will raise my clenched fists to destroy you. I am tired of always giving you another chance. 7 I will winnow you like grain at the gates of your cities and take away everything you hold dear. I will destroy my own people, because they refuse to turn back to me from all their evil ways. 8 " There will be more widows than the grains of sand along the seashore. At noontime I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of young men. I will cause anguish and terror to come upon them suddenly. 9 The mother of seven grows faint and gasps for breath; her sun has gone down while it is yet day. She sits childless now, disgraced and humiliated. And those who are left, I will hand over to the enemy to be killed," says the LORD. 10 Then I said, " What sadness is mine, my mother. Oh, that I had died at birth! I am hated everywhere I go. I am neither a lender who has threatened to foreclose nor a borrower who refuses to pay--yet they all curse me." 11 The LORD replied, " All will be well with you, Jeremiah. Your enemies will ask you to plead on their behalf in times of trouble and distress. 12 Can a man break a bar of iron from the north, or a bar of bronze? 13 Because of all my people's sins against me, I will hand over their wealth and treasures as plunder to the enemy. 14 I will tell their enemies to take them as captives to a foreign land. For my anger blazes forth like fire, and it will consume them." 15 Then I said, " LORD, you know I am suffering for your sake. Punish my persecutors! Don't let them kill me! Be merciful to me and give them what they deserve! 16 Your words are what sustain me. They bring me great joy and are my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty. 17 I never joined the people in their merry feasts. I sat alone because your hand was on me. I burst with indignation at their sins. 18 Why then does my suffering continue? Why is my wound so incurable? Your help seems as uncertain as a seasonal brook. It is like a spring that has gone dry." 19 The LORD replied, " If you return to me, I will restore you so you can continue to serve me. If you speak words that are worthy, you will be my spokesman. You are to influence them; do not let them influence you! 20 They will fight against you like an attacking army, but I will make you as secure as a fortified wall. They will not conquer you, for I will protect and deliver you. I, the LORD, have spoken! 21 Yes, I will certainly keep you safe from these wicked men. I will rescue you from their cruel hands."16:1 THE LORD gave me another message. He said, 2 " Do not marry or have children in this place. 3 For this is what the LORD says about the children born here in this city and about their mothers and fathers: 4 They will die from terrible diseases. No one will mourn for them or bury them, and they will lie scattered on the ground like dung. They will die from war and famine, and their bodies will be food for the vultures and wild animals. 5 " Do not go to their funerals to mourn and show sympathy for them," says the LORD, " for I have removed my protection and peace from them. I have taken away my unfailing love and my mercy. 6 Both the great and the lowly will die in this land. No one will bury them or mourn for them. Their friends will not cut themselves or shave their heads in sadness. 7 No one will offer a meal to comfort those who mourn for the dead--not even for the death of a mother or a father. No one will send a cup of wine to console them. 8 " And do not go to their feasts and parties. Do not eat and drink with them at all. 9 For the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: In your own lifetime, before your very eyes, I will put an end to the happy singing and laughter in this land. The joyful voices of bridegrooms and brides will no longer be heard.10 " When you tell the people all these things, they will ask, ` Why has the LORD decreed such terrible things against us? What have we done to deserve such treatment? What is our sin against the LORD our God?' 11 Tell them that this is the LORD's reply: It is because your ancestors were unfaithful to me. They worshiped other gods and served them. They abandoned me. They did not keep my law. 12 And you are even worse than your ancestors! You stubbornly follow your own evil desires and refuse to listen to me. 13 So I will throw you out of this land and send you into a foreign land where you and your ancestors have never been. There you can worship idols all you like--and I will grant you no favors! 14 " But the time is coming," says the LORD, " when people who are taking an oath will no longer say, ` As surely as the LORD lives, who rescued the people of Israel from the land of Egypt.' 15 Instead, they will say, ` As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the people of Israel back to their own land from the land of the north and from all the countries to which he had exiled them.' For I will bring them back to this land that I gave their ancestors."
1 THESSALONIANS 2:9-3:13
Don't you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we [Paul and his coworkers] worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that our expenses would not be a burden to anyone there as we preached God's Good News among you. 10 You yourselves are our witnesses--and so is God--that we were pure and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11 And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. 12 We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you into his Kingdom to share his glory. 13 And we will never stop thanking God that when we preached his message to you, you didn't think of the words we spoke as being just our own. You accepted what we said as the very word of God--which, of course, it was. And this word continues to work in you who believe. 14 And then, dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God's churches in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews. 15 For some of the Jews had killed their own prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us and driven us out. They displease God and oppose everyone 16 by trying to keep us from preaching the Good News to the Gentiles, for fear some might be saved. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last. 17 Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while (though our hearts never left you), we tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again. 18 We wanted very much to come, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. 19 After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what is our proud reward and crown? It is you! Yes, you will bring us much joy as we stand together before our Lord Jesus when he comes back again. 20 For you are our pride and joy.3:1 FINALLY, when we could stand it no longer, we decided that I should stay alone in Athens, 2 and we sent Timothy to visit you. He is our co-worker for God and our brother in proclaiming the Good News of Christ. We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith, 3 and to keep you from becoming disturbed by the troubles you were going through. But, of course, you know that such troubles are going to happen to us Christians. 4 Even while we were with you, we warned you that troubles would soon come--and they did, as you well know. 5 That is why, when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to find out whether your faith was still strong. I was afraid that the Tempter had gotten the best of you and that all our work had been useless. 6 Now Timothy has just returned, bringing the good news that your faith and love are as strong as ever. He reports that you remember our visit with joy and that you want to see us just as much as we want to see you. 7 So we have been greatly comforted, dear brothers and sisters,* in all of our own crushing troubles and suffering, because you have remained strong in your faith. 8 It gives us new life, knowing you remain strong in the Lord. 9 How we thank God for you! Because of you we have great joy in the presence of God. 10 Night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again to fill up anything that may still be missing in your faith. 11 May God himself, our Father, and our Lord Jesus make it possible for us to come to you very soon. 12 And may the Lord make your love grow and overflow to each other and to everyone else, just as our love overflows toward you. 13 As a result, Christ will make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy when you stand before God our Father on that day when our Lord Jesus comes with all those who belong to him.
PSALM 80:1-19
For the choir director: A psalm of Asaph, to be sung to the tune " Lilies of the Covenant."
1 Please listen, O Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Israel like a flock.
O God, enthroned above the cherubim,
display your radiant glory
2 to Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh.
Show us your mighty power.
Come to rescue us!
3 Turn us again to yourself, O God.
Make your face shine down upon us.
Only then will we be saved.
4 O LORD God Almighty,
how long will you be angry and reject our prayers?
5 You have fed us with sorrow
and made us drink tears by the bucketful.
6 You have made us the scorn of neighboring nations.
Our enemies treat us as a joke.
7 Turn us again to yourself, O God Almighty.
Make your face shine down upon us.
Only then will we be saved.
8 You brought us from Egypt as though we were a tender vine;
you drove away the pagan nations and transplanted us into your land.
9 You cleared the ground for us,
and we took root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with our shade;
the mighty cedars were covered with our branches.
11 We spread our branches west to the Mediterranean Sea,
our limbs east to the Euphrates River.
12 But now, why have you broken down our walls
so that all who pass may steal our fruit?
13 The boar from the forest devours us,
and the wild animals feed on us.
14 Come back, we beg you, O God Almighty.
Look down from heaven and see our plight.
Watch over and care for this vine
15 that you yourself have planted,
this son you have raised for yourself.
16 For we are chopped up and burned by our enemies.
May they perish at the sight of your frown.
17 Strengthen the man you love,
the son of your choice.
18 Then we will never forsake you again.
Revive us so we can call on your name once more.
19 Turn us again to yourself, O LORD God Almighty.
Make your face shine down upon us.
Only then will we be saved.
PROVERBS 25:1-5
These are more proverbs of Solomon, collected by the advisers of King Hezekiah of Judah. It is God's privilege to conceal things and the king's privilege to discover them. No one can discover the height of heaven, the depth of the earth, or all that goes on in the king's mind! Remove the dross from silver, and the sterling will be ready for the silversmith. Remove the wicked from the king's court, and his reign will be made secure by justice.
No comments:
Post a Comment