November 28 - Galatians 3.1-20, Jeremiah 51-52 and Psalm 144
November 28 - Galatians 3.1-20, Jeremiah 51-52 and Psalm 144
Sponsored by DailyBible
Email
Law or Faith Galatians 3 You foolish Galatians! Who put a spell on you? Before your very eyes you had a clear description of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross! 2Tell me this one thing: did you receive God's Spirit by doing what the Law requires or by hearing the gospel and believing it? 3How can you be so foolish! You began by God's Spirit; do you now want to finish by your own power? 4Did all your experience mean nothing at all? Surely it meant something! 5Does God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you because you do what the Law requires or because you hear the gospel and believe it? 6Consider the experience of Abraham; as the scripture says, "He believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous."
7You should realize, then, that the real descendants of Abraham are the people who have faith.
8The scripture predicted that God would put the Gentiles right with himself through faith. And so the scripture announced the Good News to Abraham: "Through you God will bless all people."
9Abraham believed and was blessed; so all who believe are blessed as he was.
10Those who depend on obeying the Law live under a curse. For the scripture says, "Whoever does not always obey everything that is written in the book of the Law is under God's curse!"
11Now, it is clear that no one is put right with God by means of the Law, because the scripture says, "Only the person who is put right with God through faith shall live."
12But the Law has nothing to do with faith. Instead, as the scripture says, "Whoever does everything the Law requires will live."
13But by becoming a curse for us Christ has redeemed us from the curse that the Law brings; for the scripture says, "Anyone who is hanged on a tree is under God's curse."
14Christ did this in order that the blessing which God promised to Abraham might be given to the Gentiles by means of Christ Jesus, so that through faith we might receive the Spirit promised by God.
The Law and the Promise 15My friends, I am going to use an everyday example: when two people agree on a matter and sign an agreement, no one can break it or add anything to it.
16Now, God made his promises to Abraham and to his descendant. The scripture does not use the plural "descendants," meaning many people, but the singular "descendant," meaning one person only, namely, Christ.
17What I mean is that God made a covenant with Abraham and promised to keep it. The Law, which was given four hundred and thirty years later, cannot break that covenant and cancel God's promise.
18For if God's gift depends on the Law, then it no longer depends on his promise. However, it was because of his promise that God gave that gift to Abraham.
19What, then, was the purpose of the Law? It was added in order to show what wrongdoing is, and it was meant to last until the coming of Abraham's descendant, to whom the promise was made. The Law was handed down by angels, with a man acting as a go-between.
20But a go-between is not needed when only one person is involved; and God is one.
Further Judgment on Babylonia Jeremiah 51 The LORD says, "I am bringing a destructive wind against Babylonia and its people. 2I will send foreigners to destroy Babylonia like a wind that blows straw away. When that day of destruction comes, they will attack from every side and leave the land bare. 3Don't give its soldiers time to shoot their arrows or to put on their armor. Do not spare the young men! Destroy the whole army! 4They will be wounded and die in the streets of their cities. 5I, the LORD God Almighty, have not abandoned Israel and Judah, even though they have sinned against me, the Holy One of Israel. 6Run away from Babylonia! Run for your lives! Do not be killed because of Babylonia's sin. I am now taking my revenge and punishing it as it deserves. 7Babylonia was like a gold cup in my hand, making the whole world drunk. The nations drank its wine and went out of their minds. 8Babylonia has suddenly fallen and is destroyed! Mourn over it! Get medicine for its wounds, and maybe it can be healed. 9Foreigners living there said, 'We tried to help Babylonia, but it was too late. Let's leave now and go back home. God has punished Babylonia with all his might and has destroyed it completely.'"10The LORD says, "My people shout, 'The LORD has shown that we are in the right. Let's go and tell the people in Jerusalem what the LORD our God has done.'"
11The LORD has stirred up the kings of Media, because he intends to destroy Babylonia. That is how he will take revenge for the destruction of his Temple.
 The attacking officers command, "Sharpen your arrows! Get your shields ready!
12Give the signal to attack Babylon's walls. Strengthen the guard! Post the sentries! Place troops in ambush!"
The LORD has done what he said he would do to the people of Babylonia.
13That country has many rivers and rich treasures, but its time is up, and its thread of life is cut.
14The LORD Almighty has sworn by his own life that he will bring many men to attack Babylonia like a swarm of locusts, and they will shout with victory.
A Hymn of Praise to God  15The LORD made the earth by his power;
 by his wisdom he created the world
and stretched out the heavens.
16At his command the waters above the sky roar;
he brings clouds from the ends of the earth.
 He makes lightning flash in the rain
and sends the wind from his storeroom.
17At the sight of this, people feel stupid and senseless;
those who make idols are disillusioned
because the gods they make are false and lifeless.
18They are worthless and should be despised;
they will be destroyed when the LORD comes to deal with them.
19The God of Jacob is not like them;
he is the one who made everything,
and he has chosen Israel to be his very own people.
The LORD Almighty is his name.
The LORD's Hammer 20The LORD says,
"Babylonia, you are my hammer, my weapon of war.
I used you to crush nations and kingdoms,
 21
to shatter horses and riders,
to shatter chariots and their drivers,
22
to kill men and women,
to slay old and young,
to kill boys and girls,
23
to slaughter shepherds and their flocks,
to slaughter farmers and their plow horses,
to crush rulers and high officials."
Babylonia's Punishment 24The LORD says, "You will see me repay Babylonia and its people for all the evil they did to Jerusalem.
25Babylonia, you are like a mountain that destroys the whole world, but I, the LORD, am your enemy. I will take hold of you, level you to the ground, and leave you in ashes.
26None of the stones from your ruins will ever be used again for building. You will be like a desert forever. I, the LORD, have spoken.
27"Give the signal to attack! Blow the trumpet so that the nations can hear! Prepare the nations for war against Babylonia! Tell the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz to attack. Appoint an officer to lead the attack. Bring up the horses like a swarm of locusts.
28Prepare the nations for war against Babylonia. Send for the kings of Media, their leaders and officials, and the armies of all the countries they control.
29The earth trembles and shakes because the LORD is carrying out his plan to make Babylonia a desert, where no one lives.
30The Babylonian soldiers have stopped fighting and remain in their forts. They have lost their courage and have become helpless. The city gates are broken down, and the houses are on fire.
31Messenger after messenger runs to tell the king of Babylonia that his city has been broken into from every side.
32The enemy have captured the river crossing and have set the fortresses on fire. The Babylonian soldiers have panicked.
33Soon the enemy will cut them down and trample them like grain on a threshing place. I, the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, have spoken."
34The king of Babylonia cut Jerusalem up
and ate it.
He emptied the city like a jar;
like a monster he swallowed it.
He took what he wanted
and threw the rest away.
35Let the people of Zion say,
"May Babylonia be held responsible
for the violence done to us!"
Let the people of Jerusalem say,
"May Babylonia be held responsible
for what we have suffered!"
The LORD Will Help Israel 36And so the LORD said to the people of Jerusalem, "I will take up your cause and will make your enemies pay for what they did to you. I will dry up the source of Babylonia's water and make its rivers go dry.
37That country will become a pile of ruins where wild animals live. It will be a horrible sight; no one will live there, and all who see it will be terrified.
38The Babylonians all roar like lions and growl like lion cubs.
39Are they greedy? I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk and happy. They will go to sleep and never wake up.
40I will take them to be slaughtered, like lambs, goats, and rams. I, the LORD, have spoken."
Babylon's Fate 41The LORD says about Babylon: "The city that the whole world praised has been captured! What a horrifying sight Babylon has become to the nations!
42The sea has rolled over Babylon and covered it with roaring waves.
43The towns have become a horrifying sight and are like a waterless desert, where no one lives or even travels.
44I will punish Bel, the god of Babylonia, and make him give up his stolen goods; the nations will not worship him any more.
"Babylon's walls have fallen.
45People of Israel, run away from there! Run for your life from my fierce anger.
46Do not lose courage or be afraid because of the rumors you hear. Every year a different rumor spreads--rumors of violence in the land and of one king fighting another.
47And so the time is coming when I will deal with Babylonia's idols. The whole country will be put to shame, and all its people will be killed.
48Everything on earth and in the sky will shout for joy when Babylonia falls to the people who come from the north to destroy it.
49Babylonia caused the death of people all over the world, and now Babylonia will fall because it caused the death of so many Israelites. I, the LORD, have spoken."
God's Message to the Israelites in Babylonia 50The LORD says to his people in Babylonia: "You have escaped death! Now go! Don't wait! Though you are far from home, think about me, your LORD, and remember Jerusalem.
51You say, 'We've been disgraced and made ashamed; we feel completely helpless because foreigners have taken over the holy places in the Temple.'
52So then, I say that the time is coming when I will deal with Babylon's idols, and the wounded will groan throughout the country.
53Even if Babylon could climb to the sky and build a strong fortress there, I would still send people to destroy it. I, the LORD, have spoken."
Further Destruction on Babylon 54The LORD says,
"Listen to the sound of crying in Babylon,
of mourning for the destruction in the land.
55I am destroying Babylon
and putting it to silence.
The armies rush in like roaring waves
and attack with noisy shouts.
56They have come to destroy Babylon;
its soldiers are captured,
and their bows are broken.
I am a God who punishes evil,
and I will treat Babylon as it deserves.
57I will make its rulers drunk--
men of wisdom, leaders, and soldiers.
They will go to sleep and never wake up.
I, the king, have spoken;
I am the LORD Almighty.
58The walls of mighty Babylon will be thrown to the ground,
and its towering gates burned down.
The work of the nations is all for nothing;
their efforts go up in flames.
I, the LORD Almighty, have spoken."
Jeremiah's Message Is Sent to Babylonia 59King Zedekiah's personal attendant was Seraiah, the son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah. In the fourth year that Zedekiah was king of Judah, Seraiah was going to Babylonia with him, and I gave him some instructions.
60I wrote in a book an account of all the destruction that would come on Babylonia, as well as all these other things about Babylonia.
61I told Seraiah, "When you get to Babylon, be sure to read aloud to the people everything that is written here.
62Then pray, 'LORD, you have said that you would destroy this place, so that there would be no living creatures in it, neither people nor animals, and it would be like a desert forever.'
63Seraiah, when you finish reading this book to the people, then tie it to a rock and throw it into the Euphrates River
64and say, 'This is what will happen to Babylonia--it will sink and never rise again because of the destruction that the LORD is going to bring on it.'"
The words of Jeremiah end here.
The Fall of Jerusalem
Zedekiah rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia,
4and so Nebuchadnezzar came with all his army and attacked Jerusalem on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign. They set up camp outside the city, built siege walls around it,
5and kept it under siege until Zedekiah's eleventh year.
6On the ninth day of the fourth month of that same year, when the famine was so bad that the people had nothing left to eat,
7the city walls were broken through. Although the Babylonians were surrounding the city, all the soldiers escaped during the night. They left by way of the royal garden, went through the gateway connecting the two walls, and fled in the direction of the Jordan Valley.
8But the Babylonian army pursued King Zedekiah, captured him in the plains near Jericho, and all his soldiers deserted him.
9Zedekiah was taken to King Nebuchadnezzar, who was in the city of Riblah in the territory of Hamath, and there Nebuchadnezzar passed sentence on him.
10At Riblah he put Zedekiah's sons to death while Zedekiah was looking on and he also had the officials of Judah executed.
11After that, he had Zedekiah's eyes put out and had him placed in chains and taken to Babylon. Zedekiah remained in prison in Babylon until the day he died.
The Destruction of the Temple
12On the tenth day of the fifth month of the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, Nebuzaradan, adviser to the king and commander of his army, entered Jerusalem.
13He burned down the Temple, the palace, and the houses of all the important people in Jerusalem;
14and his soldiers tore down the city walls.
15Then Nebuzaradan took away to Babylonia the people who were left in the city, the remaining skilled workers, and those who had deserted to the Babylonians.
16But he left in Judah some of the poorest people, who owned no property, and he put them to work in the vineyards and fields.
17The Babylonians broke in pieces the bronze columns and the carts that were in the Temple, together with the large bronze tank, and they took all the bronze to Babylon.
18They also took away the shovels and the ash containers used in cleaning the altar, the tools used in tending the lamps, the bowls used for catching the blood from the sacrifices, the bowls used for burning incense, and all the other bronze articles used in the Temple service.
19They took away everything that was made of gold or silver: the small bowls, the pans used for carrying live coals, the bowls for holding the blood from the sacrifices, the ash containers, the lampstands, the bowls used for incense, and the bowls used for pouring out wine offerings.
20The bronze objects that King Solomon had made for the Temple--the two columns, the carts, the large tank, and the twelve bulls that supported it--were too heavy to weigh.
21-22The two columns were identical: each one was 27 feet high and 18 feet around. They were hollow, and the metal was 3 inches thick. On top of each column was a bronze capital 7˝ feet high, and all around it was a grillwork decorated with pomegranates, all of which was also made of bronze.
23On the grillwork of each column there were a hundred pomegranates in all, and ninety-six of these were visible from the ground.
The People of Judah Are Taken to Babylonia
24In addition, Nebuzaradan, the commanding officer, took away as prisoners Seraiah the High Priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three other important Temple officials.
25From the city he took the officer who had been in command of the troops, seven of the king's personal advisers who were still in the city, the commander's assistant, who was in charge of military records, and sixty other important men.
26Nebuzaradan took them to the king of Babylonia, who was in the city of Riblah
27in the territory of Hamath. There the king had them beaten and put to death.
So the people of Judah were carried away from their land into exile.
28This is the record of the people that Nebuchadnezzar took away as prisoners: in his seventh year as king he carried away 3,023;
29in his eighteenth year, 832 from Jerusalem;
30and in his twenty-third year, 745--taken away by Nebuzaradan. In all, 4,600 people were taken away.
31In the year that Evil-merodach became king of Babylonia, he showed kindness to King Jehoiachin of Judah by releasing him from prison. This happened on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin had been taken away as a prisoner.
32Evilmerodach treated him kindly and gave him a position of greater honor than he gave the other kings who were exiles with him in Babylonia.
33So Jehoiachin was permitted to change from his prison clothes and to dine at the king's table for the rest of his life.
34Each day for as long as he lived, he was given a regular allowance for his needs.
A King Thanks God for Victory Psalm 144 Praise the LORD, my protector! He trains me for battle
and prepares me for war.
 2He is my protector and defender,
my shelter and savior,
in whom I trust for safety.
 He subdues the nations under me.3LORD, what are mortals, that you notice them;
mere mortals, that you pay attention to us?
4We are like a puff of wind;
our days are like a passing shadow.5O LORD, tear the sky open and come down;
touch the mountains, and they will pour out smoke.
6Send flashes of lightning and scatter your enemies;
shoot your arrows and send them running.
7Reach down from above,
pull me out of the deep water, and rescue me;
save me from the power of foreigners,
8 who never tell the truth
and lie even under oath.9I will sing you a new song, O God;
I will play the harp and sing to you.
 10You give victory to kings
and rescue your servant David.
11Save me from my cruel enemies;
rescue me from the power of foreigners,
who never tell the truth
and lie even under oath.12May our sons in their youth
be like plants that grow up strong.
May our daughters be like stately columns
which adorn the corners of a palace.
13May our barns be filled
with crops of every kind.
May the sheep in our fields
bear young by the tens of thousands.
14May our cattle reproduce plentifully
without miscarriage or loss.
May there be no cries of distress in our streets.15Happy is the nation of whom this is true;
happy are the people whose God is the LORD!
|
This reading is from The Holy
Bible, Today's English Version, Second Edition copyright © American
Bible Society, 1992;
Old Testament copyright © American Bible Society, 1976, 1992; New Testament ©
American Bible Society, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1992.
Click here to go to BibleNetUSA's main page
Click here to go to the main page of dailybibleclub.com
Copyright 2013 BibleNetUSA. All rights reserved. Email gnt@dailybibleclub.com
These daily Bible readings from the Good News Translation (GNT), formerly the Today's English Version (TEV), are published by BibleNetUSA. The web site and BibleCard® designs are by iCreative. All BibleCard® images are copyrighted by iCreative. All rights reserved.
1234