Children of God

1 John 3 See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God's children--and so, in fact, we are. This is why the world does not know us: it has not known God. ²My dear friends, we are now God's children, but it is not yet clear what we shall become. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is. ³Everyone who has this hope in Christ keeps himself pure, just as Christ is pure.
⁴Whoever sins is guilty of breaking God's law, because sin is a breaking of the law. ⁵You know that Christ appeared in order to take away sins, and that there is no sin in him. ⁶So everyone who lives in union with Christ does not continue to sin; but whoever continues to sin has never seen him or known him.
⁷Let no one deceive you, my children! Whoever does what is right is righteous, just as Christ is righteous. ⁸Whoever continues to sin belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the very beginning. The Son of God appeared for this very reason, to destroy what the Devil had done.
⁹Those who are children of God do not continue to sin, for God's very nature is in them; and because God is their Father, they cannot continue to sin. ¹⁰Here is the clear difference between God's children and the Devil's children: those who do not do what is right or do not love others are not God's children.

Love One Another

¹¹The message you heard from the very beginning is this: we must love one another. ¹²We must not be like Cain; he belonged to the Evil One and murdered his own brother Abel. Why did Cain murder him? Because the things he himself did were wrong, and the things his brother did were right.
¹³So do not be surprised, my friends, if the people of the world hate you. ¹⁴We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death. ¹⁵Those who hate others are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life in them. ¹⁶This is how we know what love is: Christ gave his life for us. We too, then, ought to give our lives for others! ¹⁷If we are rich and see others in need, yet close our hearts against them, how can we claim that we love God? ¹⁸My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.

Courage before God

¹⁹This, then, is how we will know that we belong to the truth; this is how we will be confident in God's presence. ²⁰If our conscience condemns us, we know that God is greater than our conscience and that he knows everything. ²¹And so, my dear friends, if our conscience does not condemn us, we have courage in God's presence. ²²We receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. ²³What he commands is that we believe in his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as Christ commanded us. ²⁴Those who obey God's commands live in union with God and God lives in union with them. And because of the Spirit that God has given us we know that God lives in union with us.

King Joahaz of Judah
(2 Kings 23.30 -35)

2 Chronicles 36 The people of Judah chose Josiah's son Joahaz and anointed him king in Jerusalem. ²Joahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. ³King Neco of Egypt took him prisoner and made Judah pay 7,500 pounds of silver and 75 pounds of gold as tribute. ⁴Neco made Joahaz' brother Eliakim king of Judah and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Joahaz was taken to Egypt by Neco.

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

⁵Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. He sinned against the LORD his God. ⁶King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia invaded Judah, captured Jehoiakim, and took him to Babylonia in chains. ⁷Nebuchadnezzar carried off some of the treasures of the Temple and put them in his palace in Babylon. ⁸Everything that Jehoiakim did, including his disgusting practices and the evil he committed, is recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.

King Jehoiachin of Judah
(2 Kings 24.8-17)

⁹Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months and ten days. He too sinned against the LORD. ¹⁰When spring came, King Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin to Babylonia as a prisoner and carried off the treasures of the Temple. Then Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah king of Judah and Jerusalem.

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

¹¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. ¹²He sinned against the LORD and did not listen humbly to the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke the word of the LORD.

The Fall of Jerusalem
(2 Kings 25.1-21; Jeremiah 52.3b -11)

¹³Zedekiah rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had forced him to swear in God's name that he would be loyal. He stubbornly refused to repent and return to the LORD, the God of Israel. ¹⁴In addition, the leaders of Judah, the priests, and the people followed the sinful example of the nations around them in worshiping idols, and so they defiled the Temple, which the LORD himself had made holy. ¹⁵The LORD, the God of their ancestors, had continued to send prophets to warn his people, because he wanted to spare them and the Temple. ¹⁶But they made fun of God's messengers, ignoring his words and laughing at his prophets, until at last the LORD's anger against his people was so great that there was no escape.
¹⁷So the LORD brought the king of Babylonia to attack them. The king killed the young men of Judah even in the Temple. He had no mercy on anyone, young or old, man or woman, sick or healthy. God handed them all over to him. ¹⁸The king of Babylonia looted the Temple, the Temple treasury, and the wealth of the king and his officials, and took everything back to Babylon. ¹⁹He burned down the Temple and the city, with all its palaces and its wealth, and broke down the city wall. ²⁰He took all the survivors to Babylonia, where they served him and his descendants as slaves until the rise of the Persian Empire. ²¹And so what the LORD had foretold through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "The land will lie desolate for seventy years, to make up for the Sabbath rest that has not been observed."

Cyrus Commands the Jews to Return
(Ezra 1.1-4)

²²In the first year that Cyrus of Persia was emperor, the LORD made what he had said through the prophet Jeremiah come true. He prompted Cyrus to issue the following command and send it out in writing to be read aloud everywhere in his empire:
²³"This is the command of Cyrus, Emperor of Persia. The LORD, the God of Heaven, has made me ruler over the whole world and has given me the responsibility of building a temple for him in Jerusalem in Judah. Now, all of you who are God's people, go there, and may the LORD your God be with you."

BOOK FOUR
(Psalms 90--106)

Of God and Human Beings

Psalm 90 O Lord, you have always been our home.
²Before you created the hills
or brought the world into being,
you were eternally God,
and will be God forever.

³You tell us to return to what we were;
you change us back to dust.
⁴A thousand years to you are like one day;
they are like yesterday, already gone,
like a short hour in the night.
⁵You carry us away like a flood;
we last no longer than a dream.
We are like weeds that sprout in the morning,
⁶that grow and burst into bloom,
then dry up and die in the evening.

⁷We are destroyed by your anger;
we are terrified by your fury.
⁸You place our sins before you,
our secret sins where you can see them.

⁹Our life is cut short by your anger;
it fades away like a whisper.
¹⁰Seventy years is all we have--
eighty years, if we are strong;
yet all they bring us is trouble and sorrow;
life is soon over, and we are gone.

¹¹Who has felt the full power of your anger?
Who knows what fear your fury can bring?
¹²Teach us how short our life is,
so that we may become wise.

¹³How much longer will your anger last?
Have pity, O LORD, on your servants!
¹⁴Fill us each morning with your constant love,
so that we may sing and be glad all our life.
¹⁵Give us now as much happiness as the sadness you gave us
during all our years of misery.
¹⁶Let us, your servants, see your mighty deeds;
let our descendants see your glorious might.
¹⁷Lord our God, may your blessings be with us.
Give us success in all we do!