The Son's Authority

John 5 ¹⁹Jesus told the people:

I tell you for certain that the Son cannot do anything on his own. He can do only what he sees the Father doing, and he does exactly what he sees the Father do. ²⁰The Father loves the Son and has shown him everything he does. The Father will show him even greater things, and you will be amazed. ²¹Just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so the Son gives life to anyone he wants to.

²²The Father doesn't judge anyone, but he has made his Son the judge of everyone. ²³The Father wants all people to honor the Son as much as they honor him. When anyone refuses to honor the Son, that is the same as refusing to honor the Father who sent him. ²⁴I tell you for certain that everyone who hears my message and has faith in the one who sent me has eternal life and will never be condemned. They have already gone from death to life.

²⁵I tell you for certain that the time will come, and it is already here, when all of the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. And those who listen to it will live! ²⁶The Father has the power to give life, and he has given that same power to the Son. ²⁷And he has given his Son the right to judge everyone, because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸Don't be surprised! The time will come when all of the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man, ²⁹and they will come out of their graves. Everyone who has done good things will rise to life, but everyone who has done evil things will rise and be condemned.

³⁰I cannot do anything on my own. The Father sent me, and he is the one who told me how to judge. I judge with fairness, because I obey him, and I don't just try to please myself.

Witnesses to Jesus

³¹If I speak for myself, there is no way to prove I am telling the truth. ³²But there is someone else who speaks for me, and I know what he says is true. ³³You sent messengers to John, and he told them the truth. ³⁴I don't depend on what people say about me, but I tell you these things so that you may be saved. ³⁵John was a lamp that gave a lot of light, and you were glad to enjoy his light for a while.

³⁶But something more important than John speaks for me. I mean the things that the Father has given me to do! All of these speak for me and prove that the Father sent me.

³⁷The Father who sent me also speaks for me, but you have never heard his voice or seen him face to face. ³⁸You have not believed his message, because you refused to have faith in the one he sent.

³⁹You search the Scriptures, because you think you will find eternal life in them. The Scriptures tell about me, ⁴⁰but you refuse to come to me for eternal life.

⁴¹I don't care about human praise, ⁴²but I do know that none of you love God. ⁴³I have come with my Father's authority, and you have not welcomed me. But you will welcome people who come on their own. ⁴⁴How could you possibly believe? You like to have your friends praise you, and you don't care about praise that the only God can give!

⁴⁵Don't think that I will be the one to accuse you to the Father. You have put your hope in Moses, yet he is the very one who will accuse you. ⁴⁶Moses wrote about me, and if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me. ⁴⁷But if you don't believe what Moses wrote, how can you believe what I say?

The End of the War with Ammon
(2 Samuel 11.1; 12.26-31)

1 Chronicles 20 The next spring, the time when kings go to war, Joab marched out in command of the Israelite army and destroyed towns all over the country of Ammon. He attacked the capital city of Rabbah and left it in ruins. But David stayed in Jerusalem.
²Later, David himself went to Rabbah, where he took the crown from the statue of their god Milcom. The crown was made of seventy-five pounds of gold, and there was a valuable jewel on it. David put the jewel on his crown, then carried off everything else of value. ³He forced the people of Rabbah to work with saws, iron picks, and axes. He also did the same thing with the people in all the other Ammonite towns.
David then led Israel's army back to Jerusalem.

The Descendants of the Rephaim
(2 Samuel 21.15-22)

⁴Some time later, Israel fought a battle against the Philistines at Gezer. During this battle, Sibbecai from Hushah killed Sippai, a descendant of the Rephaim, and the Philistines were defeated.
⁵In another battle against the Philistines, Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath from Gath, whose spear shaft was like a weaver's beam.
⁶Another one of the Philistine soldiers who was a descendant of the Rapha was as big as a giant and had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. During a battle at Gath, ⁷he made fun of Israel, so David's nephew Jonathan killed him.
⁸David and his soldiers killed these three men from Gath who were descendants of the Rapha.

David Counts the People
(2 Samuel 24.1-9)

1 Chronicles 21 Satan decided to cause trouble for Israel by making David think it was a good idea to find out how many people there were in Israel and Judah. ²David told Joab and the army commanders, "Count everyone in Israel, from the town of Beersheba in the south all the way north to Dan. Then I will know how many people can serve in my army."
³Joab answered, "Your Majesty, even if the LORD made your kingdom a hundred times larger, you would still rule everyone in it. Why do you need to know how many soldiers there are? Don't you think that would make the whole nation angry?"
⁴But David would not change his mind. And so Joab went everywhere in Israel and Judah and counted the people. He returned to Jerusalem ⁵and told David that the total number of men who could serve in the army was one million one hundred thousand in Israel and four hundred seventy thousand in Judah. ⁶Joab refused to include anyone from the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, because he still disagreed with David's orders.

God Punishes Israel
(2 Samuel 24.10-17)

⁷David's order to count the people made God angry, and he punished Israel. ⁸David prayed, "I am your servant. But what I did was stupid and terribly wrong. Please forgive me."
⁹The LORD said to Gad, one of David's prophets, ¹⁰"Tell David that I will punish him in one of three ways. But he will have to choose which one it will be."
¹¹Gad went to David and told him:

You must choose how the LORD will punish you: ¹²Will there be three years when the land won't grow enough food for its people? Or will your enemies constantly defeat you for three months? Or will the LORD send a horrible disease to strike your land for three days? Think about it and decide, because I have to give your answer to God who sent me.

¹³David was miserable and said, "It's a terrible choice to make! But the LORD is kind, and I'd rather have him punish me than for anyone else to do it."
¹⁴So the LORD sent a horrible disease on Israel, and seventy thousand Israelites died. ¹⁵Then he sent an angel to destroy the city of Jerusalem. But just as the angel was about to do that, the LORD felt sorry for all the suffering he had caused the people, and he told the angel, "Stop! They have suffered enough." This happened at the threshing place that belonged to Araunah the Jebusite.
¹⁶David saw the LORD's angel in the air, holding a sword over Jerusalem. He and the leaders of Israel, who were all wearing sackcloth, bowed with their faces to the ground, ¹⁷and David prayed, "It's my fault! I sinned by ordering the people to be counted. They have done nothing wrong--they are innocent sheep. LORD God, please punish me and my family. Don't let the disease wipe out your people."

David Buys Araunah's Threshing Place
(2 Samuel 24.18-25)

¹⁸The LORD's angel told the prophet Gad to tell David that he must go to Araunah's threshing place and build an altar in honor of the LORD. ¹⁹David followed the LORD's instructions.
²⁰Araunah and his four sons were threshing wheat at the time, and when they saw the angel, the four sons ran to hide. ²¹Just then, David arrived, and when Araunah saw him, he stopped his work and bowed down.
²²David said, "Would you sell me your threshing place, so I can build an altar on it to the LORD? Then this disease will stop killing the people. I'm willing to pay whatever you say it's worth."
²³Araunah answered, "Take it, Your Majesty, and do whatever you want with it. I'll even give you the oxen for the sacrifice and the wheat for the grain sacrifice. And you can use the threshing-boards for the fire. It's all yours!"
²⁴But David replied, "No! I want to pay you what they're worth. I can't just take something from you and then offer the LORD a sacrifice that cost me nothing."
²⁵So David paid Araunah six hundred gold coins for his threshing place. ²⁶David built an altar and offered sacrifices to please the LORD and sacrifices to ask his blessing. David prayed, and the LORD answered him by sending fire down on the altar. ²⁷Then the LORD commanded the angel to put the sword away.
²⁸When David saw that the LORD had answered his prayer, he offered more sacrifices there at the threshing place, ^29-30because he was afraid of the angel's sword and did not want to go all the way to Gibeon. That's where the sacred tent that Moses had made in the desert was kept, as well as the altar where sacrifices were offered to the LORD.
1 Chronicles 22 David said, "The temple of the LORD God must be built right here at this threshing place. And the altar for offering sacrifices will also be here."

The LORD's Promises to Zion

Zechariah 8 The LORD All-Powerful said to me:

²I love Zion so much that her enemies make me angry. ³I will return to Jerusalem and live there on Mount Zion. Then Jerusalem will be known as my faithful city, and Zion will be known as my holy mountain.

⁴Very old people with walking sticks will once again sit around in Jerusalem, ⁵while boys and girls play in the streets. ⁶This may seem impossible for my people who are left, but it isn't impossible for me, the LORD All-Powerful. ⁷I will save those who were taken to lands in the east and the west, ⁸and I will bring them to live in Jerusalem. They will be my people, and I will be their God, faithful to bring about justice.

⁹I am the LORD All-Powerful! So don't give up. Think about the message my prophets spoke when the foundation of my temple was laid. ¹⁰Before that time, neither people nor animals were rewarded for their work, and no one was safe anywhere, because I had turned them against each other.

¹¹My people, only a few of you are left, and I promise not to punish you as I did before. ¹²Instead, I will make sure that your crops are planted in peace and your vineyards are fruitful, that your fields are fertile and the dew falls from the sky. ¹³People of Judah and Israel, you have been a curse to the nations, but I will save you and make you a blessing to them. So don't be afraid or lose courage.

¹⁴When your ancestors made me angry, I decided to punish you with disasters, and I didn't hold back. ¹⁵Now you no longer need to be afraid. I have decided to treat Jerusalem and Judah with kindness. ¹⁶But you must be truthful with each other, and in court you must give fair decisions that lead to peace. ¹⁷Don't ever plan evil things against others or tell lies under oath. I, the LORD, hate such things.

A Time of Celebration

¹⁸The LORD All-Powerful told me to say:

¹⁹People of Judah, I, the LORD, demand that whenever you go without food as a way of worshiping me, it should become a time of celebration. No matter if it's the fourth month, the fifth month, the seventh month, or the tenth month, you should have a joyful festival. So love truth and live at peace.

²⁰I tell you that people will come here from cities everywhere. ²¹Those of one town will go to another and say, "We're going to ask the LORD All-Powerful to treat us with kindness. Come and join us."

²²Many people from strong nations will come to Jerusalem to worship me and to ask me to treat them with kindness. ²³When this happens, ten people from nations with different languages will grab a Jew by his clothes and say, "Let us go with you. We've heard that God is on your side." I, the LORD All-Powerful, have spoken!