The One Year Bible TLB (219 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
How lovely is your Temple, O Lord of the armies of heaven.
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I long, yes, faint with longing to be able to enter your courtyard and come near to the Living God.
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Even the sparrows and swallows are welcome to come and nest among your altars and there have their young, O Lord of heaven’s armies, my King and my God!
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How happy are those who can live in your Temple, singing your praises.
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Happy are those who are strong in the Lord, who want above all else to follow your steps.
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When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of springs where pools of blessing and refreshment collect after rains!
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They will grow constantly in strength, and each of them is invited to meet with the Lord in Zion.
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O Jehovah, God of the heavenly armies, hear my prayer! Listen, God of Israel.
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O God, our Defender and our Shield, have mercy on the one you have anointed as your king.
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A single day spent in your Temple is better than a thousand anywhere else! I would rather be a doorman of the Temple of my God than live in palaces
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of wickedness.
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For Jehovah God is our Light and our Protector. He gives us grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk along his paths.
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O Lord of the armies of heaven, blessed are those who trust in you.
Be patient and you will finally win, for a soft tongue can break hard bones.
October 15This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord during the first year of the reign of Jehoiakim (son of Josiah), king of Judah:
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Stand out in front of the Temple of the Lord and make an announcement to all the people who have come there to worship from many parts of Judah. Give them the entire message; don’t leave out one word of all I have for them to hear.
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For perhaps they will listen and turn from their evil ways, and then I can withhold all the punishment I am ready to pour out upon them because of their evil deeds.
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Tell them the Lord says: If you will not listen to me and obey the laws I have given you,
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and if you will not listen to my servants, the prophets—for I sent them again and again to warn you, but you would not listen to them—
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then I will destroy this Temple as I destroyed the Tabernacle at Shiloh, and I will make Jerusalem a curse word in every nation of the earth.
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When Jeremiah had finished his message, saying everything the Lord had told him to, the priests and false prophets and all the people in the Temple mobbed him, shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!
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What right do you have to say the Lord will destroy this Temple like the one at Shiloh?” they yelled. “What do you mean—Jerusalem destroyed and not one survivor?”
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When the high officials of Judah heard what was going on, they rushed over from the palace and sat down at the door of the Temple to hold court.
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Then the priests and the false prophets presented their accusations to the officials and the people. “This man should die!” they said. “You have heard with your own ears what a traitor he is, for he has prophesied against this city.”
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Then Jeremiah spoke in his defense. “The Lord sent me,” he said, “to prophesy against this Temple and this city. He gave me every word of all that I have spoken.
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But if you stop your sinning and begin obeying the Lord your God, he will cancel all the punishment he has announced against you.
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As for me, I am helpless and in your power—do with me as you think best.
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But there is one thing sure, if you kill me, you will be killing an innocent man, and the responsibility will lie upon you and upon this city and upon every person living in it; for it is absolutely true that the Lord sent me to speak every word that you have heard from me.”
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Then the officials and people said to the priests and false prophets, “This man does not deserve the death sentence, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.”
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Then some of the wise old men stood and spoke to all the people standing around and said:
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“The decision is right; for back in the days when Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of King Hezekiah of Judah, he told the people that God said: ‘This hill shall be plowed like an open field and this city of Jerusalem razed into heaps of stone, and a forest shall grow at the top where the great Temple now stands!’
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But did King Hezekiah and the people kill him for saying this? No, they turned from their wickedness and worshiped the Lord and begged the Lord to have mercy upon them; and the Lord held back the terrible punishment he had pronounced against them. If we kill Jeremiah for giving us the messages of God, who knows what God will do to us!”
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Another true prophet of the Lord, Uriah (son of Shemaiah) from Kiriath-jearim, was also denouncing the city and the nation at the same time as Jeremiah was.
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But when King Jehoiakim and the army officers and officials heard what he was saying, the king sent to kill him. Uriah heard about it and fled to Egypt.
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Then King Jehoiakim sent Elnathan (son of Achbor) to Egypt along with several other men to capture Uriah.
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They took him prisoner and brought him back to King Jehoiakim, who butchered him with a sword and had him buried in an unmarked grave.
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But Ahikam (son of Shaphan), the royal secretary,
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stood with Jeremiah and persuaded the court not to turn him over to the mob to kill him.
27:
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This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord at the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim
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(son of Josiah), king of Judah:
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“Make a yoke and fasten it on your neck with leather thongs as you would strap a yoke on an ox.
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Then send messages to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, through their ambassadors in Jerusalem,
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saying, Tell your masters that the Lord, the God of Israel, sends you this message:
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“By my great power I have made the earth and all mankind and every animal; and I give these things of mine to anyone I want to.
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So now I have given all your countries to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who is my deputy. And I have handed over to him all your cattle for his use.
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All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until his time is up, and then many nations and great kings shall conquer Babylon and make him their slave.
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Submit to him and serve him—put your neck under Babylon’s yoke! I will punish any nation refusing to be his slave; I will send war, famine, and disease upon that nation until he has conquered it.
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“Do not listen to your false prophets, fortune-tellers, dreamers, mediums, and magicians who say the king of Babylon will not enslave you.
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For they are all liars, and if you follow their advice and refuse to submit to the king of Babylon, I will drive you out of your land and send you far away to perish.
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But the people of any nation submitting to the king of Babylon will be permitted to stay in their own country and farm the land as usual.”
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Jeremiah repeated all these prophecies to Zedekiah, king of Judah. “If you want to live, submit to the king of Babylon,” he said.
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“Why do you insist on dying—you and your people? Why should you choose war and famine and disease, which the Lord has promised to every nation that will not submit to Babylon’s king?
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Don’t listen to the false prophets who keep telling you the king of Babylon will not conquer you, for they are liars.
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I have not sent them, says the Lord, and they are telling you lies in my name. If you insist on heeding them, I must drive you from this land to die—you and all these ‘prophets’ too.”
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I spoke again and again to the priests and all the people and told them: “This is what the Lord says! Don’t listen to your prophets who are telling you that soon the gold dishes taken from the Temple will be returned from Babylon. It is all a lie.
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Don’t listen to them. Surrender to the king of Babylon and live, for otherwise this whole city will be destroyed.
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If they are really God’s prophets, then let them pray to the Lord Almighty that the gold dishes still here in the Temple, left from before, and that those in the palace of the king of Judah and in the palaces in Jerusalem will not be carried away with you to Babylon!
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“For the Lord Almighty says: The pillars of bronze standing before the Temple, the great bronze basin in the Temple court, the metal stands, and all the other ceremonial articles left here by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, when he exiled all the important people of Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon, along with Jeconiah (son of Jehoiakim), king of Judah,
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will all yet be carried away to Babylon and will stay there until I send for them. Then I will bring them all back to Jerusalem again.”
Finally, dear brothers, as I come to the end of this letter, I ask you to pray for us. Pray first that the Lord’s message will spread rapidly and triumph wherever it goes, winning converts everywhere as it did when it came to you.
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Pray, too, that we will be saved out of the clutches of evil men, for not everyone loves the Lord.
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But the Lord is faithful; he will make you strong and guard you from satanic attacks of every kind.
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And we trust the Lord that you are putting into practice the things we taught you, and that you always will.
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May the Lord bring you into an ever deeper understanding of the love of God and of the patience that comes from Christ.
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Now here is a command, dear brothers, given in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ by his authority: Stay away from any Christian who spends his days in laziness and does not follow the ideal of hard work we set up for you.
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For you well know that you ought to follow our example: you never saw us loafing;
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we never accepted food from anyone without buying it; we worked hard day and night for the money we needed to live on, in order that we would not be a burden to any of you.
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It wasn’t that we didn’t have the right to ask you to feed us, but we wanted to show you firsthand how you should work for your living.
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Even while we were still there with you, we gave you this rule: “He who does not work shall not eat.”
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Yet we hear that some of you are living in laziness, refusing to work, and wasting your time in gossiping.
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In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we appeal to such people—we command them—to quiet down, get to work, and earn their own living.
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And to the rest of you I say, dear brothers, never be tired of doing right.
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If anyone refuses to obey what we say in this letter, notice who he is and stay away from him, that he may be ashamed of himself.
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Don’t think of him as an enemy, but speak to him as you would to a brother who needs to be warned.
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May the Lord of peace himself give you his peace no matter what happens. The Lord be with you all.
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Now here is my greeting, which I am writing with my own hand, as I do at the end of all my letters, for proof that it really is from me. This is in my own handwriting.
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May the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you all.
Sincerely, Paul
Lord, you have poured out amazing blessings on this land! You have restored the fortunes of Israel,
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and forgiven the sins of your people—yes, covered over each one,
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so that all your wrath, your blazing anger, is now ended.
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Now bring us back to loving you,
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O Lord, so that your anger will never need rise against us again.
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(Or will you be always angry—on and on to distant generations?)
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Oh, revive us! Then your people can rejoice in you again.
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Pour out your love and kindness on us, Lord, and grant us your salvation.
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I am listening carefully to all the Lord is saying—for he speaks peace to his people, his saints, if they will only stop their sinning.
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Surely his salvation is near to those who reverence him; our land will be filled with his glory.
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Mercy and truth have met together. Grim justice
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and peace have kissed!
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Truth rises from the earth, and righteousness smiles down from heaven.
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Yes, the Lord pours down his blessings on the land, and it yields its bountiful crops.
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Justice goes before him to make a pathway for his steps.
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Do you like honey? Don’t eat too much of it, or it will make you sick!