Children of God

1 John 2 ²⁸Children, stay one in your hearts with Christ. Then when he returns, we will have confidence and won't have to hide in shame. ²⁹You know that Christ always does right and that everyone who does right is a child of God.
1 John 3 Think how much the Father loves us. He loves us so much that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are. But since the people of this world did not know who Christ is, they don't know who we are. ²My dear friends, we are already God's children, though what we will be hasn't yet been seen. But we do know that when Christ returns, we will be like him, because we will see him as he truly is. ³This hope makes us keep ourselves holy, just as Christ is holy.
⁴Everyone who sins breaks God's law, because sin is the same as breaking God's law. ⁵You know that Christ came to take away sins. He isn't sinful, ⁶and people who stay one in their hearts with him won't keep on sinning. If they do keep on sinning, they don't know Christ, and they have never seen him.
⁷Children, don't be fooled. Anyone who does right is good, just like Christ himself. ⁸Anyone who keeps on sinning belongs to the devil. He has sinned from the beginning, but the Son of God came to destroy all that he has done. ⁹God's children cannot keep on being sinful. His life-giving power lives in them and makes them his children, so that they cannot keep on sinning. ¹⁰You can tell God's children from the devil's children, because those who belong to the devil refuse to do right or to love each other.

Love Each Other

¹¹From the beginning you were told that we must love each other. ¹²Don't be like Cain, who belonged to the devil and murdered his own brother. Why did he murder him? He did it because his brother was good, and he was evil. ¹³My friends, don't be surprised if the people of this world hate you. ¹⁴Our love for each other proves that we have gone from death to life. But if you don't love each other, you are still under the power of death.
¹⁵If you hate each other, you are murderers, and we know that murderers do not have eternal life. ¹⁶We know what love is because Jesus gave his life for us. That's why we must give our lives for each other. ¹⁷If we have all we need and see one of our own people in need, we must have pity on that person, or else we cannot say we love God. ¹⁸Children, you show love for others by truly helping them, and not merely by talking about it.
¹⁹When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God. ²⁰But even if we don't feel at ease, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. ²¹Dear friends, if we feel at ease in the presence of God, we will have the courage to come near him. ²²He will give us whatever we ask, because we obey him and do what pleases him. ²³God wants us to have faith in his Son Jesus Christ and to love each other. This is also what Jesus taught us to do. ²⁴If we obey God's commandments, we will stay one in our hearts with him, and he will stay one with us. The Spirit that he has given us is proof that we are one with him.

King Jehoahaz of Judah
(2 Kings 23.30-35)

2 Chronicles 36 After the death of Josiah, the people of Judah crowned his son Jehoahaz their new king. ²He was twenty-three years old at the time, and he ruled only three months from Jerusalem. ³King Neco of Egypt captured Jehoahaz and forced Judah to pay almost four tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold as taxes. ⁴Then Neco appointed Jehoahaz's brother Eliakim king of Judah and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He led Jehoahaz away to Egypt as his prisoner.

King Jehoiakim of Judah
(2 Kings 23.36--24.7)

⁵Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he was appointed king, and he ruled eleven years from Jerusalem. Jehoiakim disobeyed the LORD his God by doing evil.
⁶During Jehoiakim's rule, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia invaded Judah. He arrested Jehoiakim and put him in chains, and he sent him to the capital city of Babylon. ⁷Nebuchadnezzar also carried off many of the valuable things in the LORD's temple, and he put them in his palace in Babylon.
⁸Everything else Jehoiakim did while he was king, including all the disgusting and evil things, is written in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin then became king.

King Jehoiachin of Judah
(2 Kings 24.8-17)

⁹Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled only three months and ten days from Jerusalem. Jehoiachin also disobeyed the LORD by doing evil. ¹⁰In the spring of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia had Jehoiachin arrested and taken to Babylon, along with more of the valuable items in the temple. Then Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah king of Judah.

King Zedekiah of Judah
(2 Kings 24.18-20; Jeremiah 52.1-3)

¹¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he was appointed king of Judah, and he ruled from Jerusalem for eleven years. ¹²He disobeyed the LORD his God and refused to change his ways, even after a warning from Jeremiah, the LORD's prophet.
¹³King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia had forced Zedekiah to promise in God's name that he would be loyal. Zedekiah was stubborn and refused to turn back to the LORD God of Israel, so he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. ¹⁴The people of Judah and even the priests who were their leaders became more unfaithful. They followed the disgusting example of the nations around them and made the LORD's holy temple unfit for worship. ¹⁵But the LORD God felt sorry for his people, and instead of destroying the temple, he sent prophets who warned the people over and over about their sins. ¹⁶But the people only laughed and insulted these prophets. They ignored what the LORD God was trying to tell them, until he finally became so angry that nothing could stop him from punishing Judah and Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Is Destroyed
(2 Kings 25.1-21; Jeremiah 52.3-30)

¹⁷The LORD sent King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia to attack Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar killed the young men who were in the temple, and he showed no mercy to anyone, whether man or woman, young or old. God let him kill everyone in the city. ¹⁸Nebuchadnezzar carried off everything that was left in the temple; he robbed the treasury and the personal storerooms of the king and his officials. He took everything back to Babylon.
¹⁹Nebuchadnezzar's troops burned down the temple and destroyed every important building in the city. Then they broke down the city wall. ²⁰The survivors were taken to Babylonia as prisoners, where they were slaves of the king and his sons, until Persia became a powerful nation.
²¹Judah was an empty desert, and it stayed that way for seventy years, to make up for all the years it was not allowed to rest. These things happened just as Jeremiah the LORD's prophet had said.

Cyrus Lets the Jews Return Home
(Ezra 1.1-4)

²²In the first year that Cyrus was king of Persia, the LORD had Cyrus send a message to all parts of his kingdom. This happened just as Jeremiah the LORD's prophet had promised. ²³The message said:

I am King Cyrus of Persia.

The LORD God of heaven has made me the ruler of every nation on earth. He has also chosen me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. The LORD God will watch over any of his people who want to go back to Judah.

BOOK IV
(Psalms 90--106)

Psalm 90
[A prayer by Moses, the man of God.]
God Is Eternal

¹Our Lord, in all generations you have been our home.
²You have always been God--
long before the birth of the mountains,
even before you created the earth and the world.

³At your command we die and turn back to dust,
⁴but a thousand years mean nothing to you!
They are merely a day gone by
or a few hours in the night.

⁵You bring our lives to an end just like a dream.
We are merely tender grass
⁶that sprouts and grows in the morning,
but dries up by evening.
⁷Your furious anger frightens and destroys us,
⁸and you know all of our sins,
even those we do in secret.

⁹Your anger is a burden each day we live,
then life ends like a sigh.
¹⁰We can expect seventy years,
or maybe eighty, if we are healthy,
but even our best years bring trouble and sorrow.
Suddenly our time is up, and we disappear.
¹¹No one knows the full power of your furious anger,
but it is as great as the fear that we owe to you.
¹²Teach us to use wisely all the time we have.

¹³Help us, LORD! Don't wait! Pity your servants.
¹⁴When morning comes,
let your love satisfy all our needs.
Then we can celebrate
and be glad for what time we have left.
¹⁵Make us happy for as long
as you caused us trouble and sorrow.
¹⁶Do wonderful things for us, your servants,
and show your mighty power to our children.
¹⁷Our Lord and our God, treat us with kindness
and let all go well for us.
Please let all go well!