Daily Bible GNT November 18 Scroll

The First Letter from
PETER

1 Peter 1 From Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ--

To God's chosen people who live as refugees scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. ²You were chosen according to the purpose of God the Father and were made a holy people by his Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be purified by his blood.

May grace and peace be yours in full measure.

A Living Hope

³Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy he gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope, ⁴and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people. He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away. ⁵They are for you, who through faith are kept safe by God's power for the salvation which is ready to be revealed at the end of time.

⁶Be glad about this, even though it may now be necessary for you to be sad for a while because of the many kinds of trials you suffer. ⁷Their purpose is to prove that your faith is genuine. Even gold, which can be destroyed, is tested by fire; and so your faith, which is much more precious than gold, must also be tested, so that it may endure. Then you will receive praise and glory and honor on the Day when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸You love him, although you have not seen him, and you believe in him, although you do not now see him. So you rejoice with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express, ⁹because you are receiving the salvation of your souls, which is the purpose of your faith in him.

¹⁰It was concerning this salvation that the prophets made careful search and investigation, and they prophesied about this gift which God would give you. ¹¹They tried to find out when the time would be and how it would come. This was the time to which Christ's Spirit in them was pointing, in predicting the sufferings that Christ would have to endure and the glory that would follow. ¹²God revealed to these prophets that their work was not for their own benefit, but for yours, as they spoke about those things which you have now heard from the messengers who announced the Good News by the power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. These are things which even the angels would like to understand.

A Call to Holy Living

¹³So then, have your minds ready for action. Keep alert and set your hope completely on the blessing which will be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. ¹⁴Be obedient to God, and do not allow your lives to be shaped by those desires you had when you were still ignorant. ¹⁵Instead, be holy in all that you do, just as God who called you is holy. ¹⁶The scripture says, "Be holy because I am holy."

¹⁷You call him Father, when you pray to God, who judges all people by the same standard, according to what each one has done; so then, spend the rest of your lives here on earth in reverence for him. ¹⁸For you know what was paid to set you free from the worthless manner of life handed down by your ancestors. It was not something that can be destroyed, such as silver or gold; ¹⁹it was the costly sacrifice of Christ, who was like a lamb without defect or flaw. ²⁰He had been chosen by God before the creation of the world and was revealed in these last days for your sake. ²¹Through him you believe in God, who raised him from death and gave him glory; and so your faith and hope are fixed on God.

²²Now that by your obedience to the truth you have purified yourselves and have come to have a sincere love for other believers, love one another earnestly with all your heart. ²³For through the living and eternal word of God you have been born again as the children of a parent who is immortal, not mortal. ²⁴As the scripture says,

"All human beings are like grass,

and all their glory is like wild flowers.

The grass withers, and the flowers fall,

²⁵

but the word of the Lord remains forever."
This word is the Good News that was proclaimed to you.

Israel's Return Home

Jeremiah 31 The LORD says, "The time is coming when I will be the God of all the tribes of Israel, and they will be my people. ²In the desert I showed mercy to those people who had escaped death. When the people of Israel longed for rest, ³I appeared to them from far away. People of Israel, I have always loved you, so I continue to show you my constant love. ⁴Once again I will rebuild you. Once again you will take up your tambourines and dance joyfully. ⁵Once again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria, and those who plant them will eat what the vineyards produce. ⁶Yes, the time is coming when sentries will call out on the hills of Ephraim, 'Let's go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.'"

⁷The LORD says,

"Sing with joy for Israel,

the greatest of the nations.

Sing your song of praise,

'The LORD has saved his people;

he has rescued all who are left.'

⁸I will bring them from the north

and gather them from the ends of the earth.

The blind and the lame will come with them,

pregnant women and those about to give birth.

They will come back a great nation.

⁹My people will return weeping,

praying as I lead them back.

I will guide them to streams of water,

on a smooth road where they will not stumble.

I am like a father to Israel,

and Ephraim is my oldest son."

¹⁰The LORD says,

"Nations, listen to me

and proclaim my words on the far-off shores.

I scattered my people, but I will gather them

and guard them as a shepherd guards his flock.

¹¹I have set Israel's people free

and have saved them from a mighty nation.

¹²They will come and sing for joy on Mount Zion

and be delighted with my gifts--

gifts of grain and wine and olive oil,

gifts of sheep and cattle.

They will be like a well-watered garden;

they will have everything they need.

¹³Then the young women will dance and be happy,

and men, young and old, will rejoice.

I will comfort them and turn their mourning into joy,

their sorrow into gladness.

¹⁴I will fill the priests with the richest food

and satisfy all the needs of my people.

I, the LORD, have spoken."

The LORD's Mercy on Israel

¹⁵The LORD says,

"A sound is heard in Ramah,

the sound of bitter weeping.

Rachel is crying for her children;

they are gone,

and she refuses to be comforted.

¹⁶Stop your crying

and wipe away your tears.

All that you have done for your children

will not go unrewarded;

they will return from the enemy's land.

¹⁷There is hope for your future;

your children will come back home.

I, the LORD, have spoken.

¹⁸"I hear the people of Israel say in grief,

'LORD, we were like an untamed animal,

but you taught us to obey.

Bring us back;

we are ready to return to you,

the LORD our God.

¹⁹We turned away from you,

but soon we wanted to return.

After you had punished us,

we hung our heads in grief.

We were ashamed and disgraced

because we sinned when we were young.'

²⁰"Israel, you are my dearest child,

the one I love best.

Whenever I mention your name,

I think of you with love.

My heart goes out to you;

I will be merciful.

²¹Set up signs and mark the road;

find again the way by which you left.

Come back, people of Israel,

come home to the towns you left.

²²How long will you hesitate, faithless people?

I have created something new and different,

as different as a woman protecting a man."

The Future Prosperity of God's People

²³The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says, "When I restore the people to their land, they will once again say in the land of Judah and in its towns,

'May the LORD bless the sacred hill of Jerusalem,

the holy place where he lives.'
²⁴People will live in Judah and in all its towns, and there will be farmers, and shepherds with their flocks. ²⁵I will refresh those who are weary and will satisfy with food everyone who is weak from hunger. ²⁶So then, people will say, 'I went to sleep and woke up refreshed.'

²⁷"I, the LORD, say that the time is coming when I will fill the land of Israel and Judah with people and animals. ²⁸And just as I took care to uproot, to pull down, to overthrow, to destroy, and to demolish them, so I will take care to plant them and to build them up. ²⁹When that time comes, people will no longer say,

'The parents ate the sour grapes,

But the children got the sour taste.'
³⁰Instead, those who eat sour grapes will have their own teeth set on edge; and everyone will die because of their own sin."

³¹The LORD says, "The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. ³²It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. Although I was like a husband to them, they did not keep that covenant. ³³The new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel will be this: I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ³⁴None of them will have to teach a neighbor to know the LORD, because all will know me, from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and I will no longer remember their wrongs. I, the LORD, have spoken."

³⁵The LORD provides the sun for light by day,

the moon and the stars to shine at night.

He stirs up the sea and makes it roar;

his name is the LORD Almighty.

³⁶He promises that as long as the natural order lasts,

so long will Israel be a nation.

³⁷If one day the sky could be measured

and the foundations of the earth explored,

only then would he reject the people of Israel

because of all they have done.

The LORD has spoken.

³⁸"The time is coming," says the LORD, "when all of Jerusalem will be rebuilt as my city, from Hananel Tower west to the Corner Gate. ³⁹And the boundary line will continue from there on the west to the hill of Gareb and then around to Goah. ⁴⁰The entire valley, where the dead are buried and garbage is dumped, and all the fields above Kidron Brook as far as the Horse Gate to the east, will be sacred to me. The city will never again be torn down or destroyed."

Jeremiah Buys a Field

Jeremiah 32 The LORD spoke to me in the tenth year that Zedekiah was king of Judah, which was also the eighteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. ²At that time the army of the king of Babylonia was attacking Jerusalem, and I was locked up in the courtyard of the royal palace. ³King Zedekiah had imprisoned me there and had accused me of announcing that the LORD had said, "I am going to let the king of Babylonia capture this city, ⁴and King Zedekiah will not escape. He will be handed over to the king of Babylonia; he will see him face-to-face and will speak to him in person. ⁵Zedekiah will be taken to Babylonia, and he will remain there until I deal with him. Even if he fights the Babylonians, he will not be successful. I, the LORD, have spoken."

⁶The LORD told me ⁷that Hanamel, my uncle Shallum's son, would come to me with the request to buy his field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin, because I was his nearest relative and had the right to buy it for myself. ⁸Then, just as the LORD had said, Hanamel came to me there in the courtyard and asked me to buy the field. So I knew that the LORD had really spoken to me. ⁹I bought the field from Hanamel and weighed out the money to him; the price came to seventeen pieces of silver. ¹⁰I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the money on scales. ¹¹Then I took both copies of the deed of purchase--the sealed copy containing the contract and its conditions, and the open copy-- ¹²and gave them to Baruch, the son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah. I gave them to him in the presence of Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed of purchase and of the people who were sitting in the courtyard. ¹³Before them all I said to Baruch, ¹⁴"The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, has ordered you to take these deeds, both the sealed deed of purchase and the open copy, and to place them in a clay jar, so that they may be preserved for years to come. ¹⁵The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, has said that houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land."

Jeremiah's Prayer

¹⁶After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch, I prayed, ¹⁷"Sovereign LORD, you made the earth and the sky by your great power and might; nothing is too difficult for you. ¹⁸You have shown constant love to thousands, but you also punish people for the sins of their parents. You are a great and powerful God; you are the LORD Almighty. ¹⁹You make wise plans and do mighty things; you see everything that people do, and you reward them according to their actions. ²⁰Long ago you performed miracles and wonders in Egypt, and you have continued to perform them to this day, both in Israel and among all the other nations, so that you are now known everywhere. ²¹By means of miracles and wonders that terrified our enemies, you used your power and might to bring your people Israel out of Egypt. ²²You gave them this rich and fertile land, as you had promised their ancestors. ²³But when they came into this land and took possession of it, they did not obey your commands or live according to your teaching; they did nothing that you had ordered them to do. And so you brought all this destruction on them.

²⁴"The Babylonians have built siege mounds around the city to capture it, and they are attacking. War, starvation, and disease will make the city fall into their hands. You can see that all you have said has come true. ²⁵Yet, Sovereign LORD, you are the one who ordered me to buy the field in the presence of witnesses, even though the city is about to be captured by the Babylonians."

²⁶Then the LORD said to me, ²⁷"I am the LORD, the God of all people. Nothing is too difficult for me. ²⁸I am going to give this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his army; they will capture it ²⁹and set it on fire. They will burn it down, together with the houses where people have made me angry by burning incense to Baal on the rooftops and by pouring out wine offerings to other gods. ³⁰From the very beginning of their history the people of Israel and the people of Judah have displeased me and made me angry by what they have done. ³¹The people of this city have made me angry and furious from the day it was built. I have decided to destroy it ³²because of all the evil that has been done by the people of Judah and Jerusalem, together with their kings and leaders, their priests and prophets. ³³They turned their backs on me; and though I kept on teaching them, they would not listen and learn. ³⁴They even placed their disgusting idols in the Temple built for my worship, and they have defiled it. ³⁵They have built altars to Baal in Hinnom Valley, to sacrifice their sons and daughters to the god Molech. I did not command them to do this, and it did not even enter my mind that they would do such a thing and make the people of Judah sin."

A Promise of Hope

³⁶The LORD, the God of Israel, said to me, "Jeremiah, the people are saying that war, starvation, and disease will make this city fall into the hands of the king of Babylonia. Now listen to what else I have to say. ³⁷I am going to gather the people from all the countries where I have scattered them in my anger and fury, and I am going to bring them back to this place and let them live here in safety. ³⁸Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. ³⁹I will give them a single purpose in life: to honor me for all time, for their own good and the good of their descendants. ⁴⁰I will make an eternal covenant with them. I will never stop doing good things for them, and I will make them fear me with all their heart, so that they will never turn away from me. ⁴¹I will take pleasure in doing good things for them, and I will establish them permanently in this land.

⁴²"Just as I have brought this disaster on these people, so I am going to give them all the good things that I have promised. ⁴³The people are saying that this land will be like a desert where neither people nor animals live, and that it will be given over to the Babylonians. But fields will once again be bought in this land. ⁴⁴People will buy them, and the deeds will be signed, sealed, and witnessed. This will take place in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah, and in the towns in the hill country, in the foothills, and in southern Judah. I will restore the people to their land. I, the LORD, have spoken."

A Call to Praise God

Psalm 134 Come, praise the LORD,

all his servants,

all who serve in his Temple at night.

²Raise your hands in prayer in the Temple,

and praise the LORD!

³May the LORD, who made heaven and earth,

bless you from Zion!

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.

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.