The One Year Bible TLB (231 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
Fire goes out for lack of fuel, and tensions disappear when gossip stops.
October 30I am the man who has seen the afflictions that come from the rod of God’s wrath.
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He has brought me into deepest darkness, shutting out all light.
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He has turned against me. Day and night his hand is heavy on me.
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He has made me old and has broken my bones.
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He has built forts against me and surrounded me with anguish and distress.
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He buried me in dark places, like those long dead.
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He has walled me in; I cannot escape; he has fastened me with heavy chains.
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And though I cry and shout, he will not hear my prayers!
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He has shut me into a place of high, smooth walls;
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he has filled my path with detours.
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He lurks like a bear, like a lion, waiting to attack me.
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He has dragged me into the underbrush and torn me with his claws, leaving me bleeding and desolate.
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He has bent his bow and aimed it squarely at me,
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and sent his arrows deep within my heart.
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My own people laugh at me; all day long they sing their ribald songs.
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He has filled me with bitterness and given me a cup of deepest sorrows to drink.
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He has made me eat gravel and broken my teeth; he has rolled me in ashes and dirt.
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O Lord, all peace and all prosperity have long since gone, for you have taken them away. I have forgotten what enjoyment is.
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All hope is gone; my strength has turned to water, for the Lord has left me.
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Oh, remember the bitterness and suffering you have dealt to me!
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For I can never forget these awful years; always my soul will live in utter shame.
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Yet there is one ray of hope:
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his compassion never ends.
It is only the Lord’s mercies that have kept us from complete destruction.
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Great is his faithfulness; his loving-kindness begins afresh each day.
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My soul claims the Lord as my inheritance; therefore I will hope in him.
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The Lord is wonderfully good to those who wait for him, to those who seek for him.
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It is good both to hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
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It is good for a young man to be under discipline,
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for it causes him to sit apart in silence beneath the Lord’s demands,
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to lie face downward in the dust; then at last there is hope for him.
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Let him turn the other cheek to those who strike him and accept their awful insults,
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for the Lord will not abandon him forever.
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Although God gives him grief, yet he will show compassion too, according to the greatness of his loving-kindness.
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For he does not enjoy afflicting men and causing sorrow.
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But you have trampled and crushed beneath your feet the lowly of the world, and deprived men of their God-given rights, and refused them justice. No wonder the Lord has had to deal with you!
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For who can act against you without the Lord’s permission?
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It is the Lord who helps one and harms another.
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Why then should we, mere humans as we are, murmur and complain when punished for our sins?
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Let us examine ourselves instead, and let us repent and turn again to the Lord.
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Let us lift our hearts and hands to him in heaven,
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for we have sinned; we have rebelled against the Lord, and he has not forgotten it.
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You have engulfed us by your anger, Lord, and slain us without mercy.
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You have veiled yourself as with a cloud so that our prayers do not reach through.
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You have made us as refuse and garbage among the nations.
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All our enemies have spoken out against us.
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We are filled with fear, for we are trapped and desolate, destroyed.
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My eyes flow day and night with never-ending streams of tears because of the destruction of my people.
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Oh, that the Lord might look down from heaven and respond to my cry!
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My heart is breaking over what is happening to the young girls of Jerusalem.
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My enemies, whom I have never harmed, chased me as though I were a bird.
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They threw me in a well and capped it with a rock.
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The water flowed above my head. I thought, This is the end!
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But I called upon your name, O Lord, from deep within the well,
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and you heard me! You listened to my pleading; you heard my weeping!
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Yes, you came at my despairing cry and told me not to fear.
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O Lord, you are my lawyer! Plead my case! For you have redeemed my life.
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You have seen the wrong they did to me; be my Judge, to prove me right.
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You have seen the plots my foes have laid against me.
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You have heard the vile names they have called me,
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and all they say about me and their whispered plans.
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See how they laugh and sing with glee, preparing my doom.
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O Lord, repay them well for all the evil they have done.
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Harden their hearts and curse them, Lord.
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Go after them in fierce pursuit and wipe them off the earth, beneath the heavens of the Lord.
Long ago God spoke in many different ways to our fathers through the prophets, in visions, dreams, and even face to face,
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telling them little by little about his plans.
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But now in these days he has spoken to us through his Son to whom he has given everything and through whom he made the world and everything there is.
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God’s Son shines out with God’s glory, and all that God’s Son is and does marks him as God. He regulates the universe by the mighty power of his command. He is the one who died to cleanse us and clear our record of all sin, and then sat down in highest honor beside the great God of heaven.
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Thus he became far greater than the angels, as proved by the fact that his name “Son of God,” which was passed on to him from his Father, is far greater than the names and titles of the angels.
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For God never said to any angel, “You are my Son, and today I have given you the honor that goes with that name.”
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But God said it about Jesus. Another time he said, “I am his Father and he is my Son.” And still another time—when his firstborn Son came to earth—God said, “Let all the angels of God worship him.”
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God speaks of his angels as messengers swift as the wind and as servants made of flaming fire;
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but of his Son he says, “Your Kingdom, O God, will last forever and ever; its commands are always just and right.
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You love right and hate wrong; so God, even your God, has poured out more gladness upon you than on anyone else.”
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God also called him “Lord” when he said, “Lord, in the beginning you made the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
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They will disappear into nothingness, but you will remain forever. They will become worn out like old clothes,
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and some day you will fold them up and replace them. But you yourself will never change, and your years will never end.”
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And did God ever say to an angel, as he does to his Son, “Sit here beside me in honor until I crush all your enemies beneath your feet”?
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No, for the angels are only spirit-messengers sent out to help and care for those who are to receive his salvation.
A prayer when overwhelmed with trouble.
Lord, hear my prayer! Listen to my plea!
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Don’t turn away from me in this time of my distress. Bend down your ear and give me speedy answers,
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for my days disappear like smoke. My health is broken, and my heart is sick; it is trampled like grass and is withered. My food is tasteless, and I have lost my appetite.
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I am reduced to skin and bones because of all my groaning and despair.
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I am like a vulture in a far-off wilderness or like an owl alone in the desert.
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I lie awake, lonely as a solitary sparrow on the roof.
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My enemies taunt me day after day and curse at me.
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I eat ashes instead of bread. My tears run down into my drink because of your anger against me, because of your wrath. For you have rejected me and thrown me out.
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My life is passing swiftly as the evening shadows. I am withering like grass,
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while you, Lord, are a famous King forever. Your fame will endure to every generation.
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I know that you will come and have mercy on Jerusalem—and now is the time to pity her—the time you promised help.
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For your people love every stone in her walls and feel sympathy for every grain of dust in her streets.
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Now let the nations and their rulers tremble before the Lord, before his glory.
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For Jehovah will rebuild Jerusalem! He will appear in his glory!
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He will listen to the prayers of the destitute, for he is never too busy to heed their requests.
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I am recording this so that future generations will also praise the Lord for all that he has done. And a people that shall be created shall praise the Lord.
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Tell them that God looked down from his temple in heaven
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and heard the groans of his people in slavery—they were children of death—and released them,
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so that multitudes would stream to the Temple in Jerusalem to praise him, and his praises were sung throughout the city; and many rulers throughout the earth came to worship him.
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He has cut me down in middle life, shortening my days.
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But I cried to him, “O God, you live forever and forever! Don’t let me die halfway through my years!
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In ages past you laid the foundations of the earth and made the heavens with your hands!
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They shall perish, but you go on forever. They will grow old like worn-out clothing, and you will change them like a man putting on a new shirt and throwing away the old one!
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But you yourself never grow old. You are forever, and your years never end.
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“But our families will continue; generation after generation will be preserved by your protection.”
A quarrelsome man starts fights as easily as a match sets fire to paper.
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Gossip is a dainty morsel eaten with great relish.
October 31How the finest gold has lost its luster! For the inlaid
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Temple walls are scattered in the streets!
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The cream of our youth—the finest of the gold—are treated as earthenware pots.
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Even the jackals feed their young, but not my people, Israel. They are like cruel desert ostriches, heedless of their babies’ cries. The children’s tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths for thirst, for there is not a drop of water left. Babies cry for bread, but no one can give them any.
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Those who used to eat fastidiously are begging in the streets for anything at all. Those brought up in palaces now scratch in garbage pits for food.
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For the sin of my people is greater than that of Sodom, where utter disaster struck in a moment without the hand of man.
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Our princes were lean and tanned,
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the finest specimens of men;
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but now their faces are as black as soot. No one can recognize them. Their skin sticks to their bones; it is dry and hard and withered.
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Those killed by the sword are far better off than those who die of slow starvation.
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Tenderhearted women have cooked and eaten their own children; thus they survived the siege.
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But now at last the anger of the Lord is satisfied; his fiercest anger has been poured out. He started a fire in Jerusalem that burned it down to its foundations.
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Not a king in all the earth—no one in all the world—would have believed an enemy could enter through Jerusalem’s gates!
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Yet God permitted it because of the sins of her prophets and priests, who defiled the city by shedding innocent blood.
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Now these same men are blindly staggering through the streets, covered with blood, defiling everything they touch.
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“Get away!” the people shout at them. “You are defiled!” They flee to distant lands and wander there among the foreigners; but none will let them stay.
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The Lord himself has dealt with them; he no longer helps them, for they persecuted the priests and elders who stayed true to God.
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We look for our allies
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to come and save us, but we look in vain. The nation we expected most to help us makes no move at all.
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We can’t go into the streets without danger to our lives. Our end is near—our days are numbered. We are doomed.
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Our enemies are swifter than the eagles; if we flee to the mountains, they find us. If we hide in the wilderness, they are waiting for us there.
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Our king—the life of our life, the Lord’s anointed—was captured in their snares. Yes, even our mighty king, about whom we had boasted that under his protection we could hold our own against any nation on earth!
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Do you rejoice, O people of Edom, in the land of Uz? But you, too, will feel the awful anger of the Lord.
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Israel’s exile for her sins will end at last, but Edom’s never.
5:
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O Lord, remember all that has befallen us; see what sorrows we must bear!
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Our homes, our nation, now are filled with foreigners.
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We are orphans—our fathers dead, our mothers widowed.
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We must even pay for water to drink; our fuel is sold to us at the highest of prices.
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We bow our necks beneath the victors’ feet; unending work is now our lot.
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We beg for bread from Egypt, and Assyria too.
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Our fathers sinned but died before the hand of judgment fell. We have borne the blow that they deserved!
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Our former servants have become our masters; there is no one left to save us.
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We went into the wilderness to hunt for food, risking death from enemies.
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Our skin was black from famine.
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They rape the women of Jerusalem and the girls in Judah’s cities.
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Our princes are hanged by their thumbs. Even aged men are treated with contempt.
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They take away the young men to grind their grain, and the little children stagger beneath their heavy loads.
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The old men sit no longer in the city gates; the young no longer dance and sing.
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The joy of our hearts has ended; our dance has turned to death.
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Our glory is gone. The crown is fallen from our head. Woe upon us for our sins.
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Our hearts are faint and weary; our eyes grow dim.
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Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord are desolate, deserted by all but wild animals lurking in the ruins.
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O Lord, forever you remain the same! Your throne continues from generation to generation.
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Why do you forget us forever? Why do you forsake us for so long?
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Turn us around and bring us back to you again! That is our only hope! Give us back the joys we used to have!
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Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?
So we must listen very carefully to the truths we have heard, or we may drift away from them.
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For since the messages from angels have always proved true and people have always been punished for disobeying them,
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what makes us think that we can escape if we are indifferent to this great salvation announced by the Lord Jesus himself and passed on to us by those who heard him speak?
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God always has shown us that these messages are true by signs and wonders and various miracles and by giving certain special abilities from the Holy Spirit to those who believe; yes, God has assigned such gifts to each of us.
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And the future world we are talking about will not be controlled by angels.
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No, for in the book of Psalms David says to God, “What is mere man that you are so concerned about him? And who is this Son of Man you honor so highly?
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For though you made him lower than the angels for a little while, now you have crowned him with glory and honor.
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And you have put him in complete charge of everything there is. Nothing is left out.”
We have not yet seen all of this take place,
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but we do see Jesus—who for a while was a little lower than the angels—crowned now by God with glory and honor because he suffered death for us. Yes, because of God’s great kindness, Jesus tasted death for everyone in all the world.
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And it was right and proper that God, who made everything for his own glory, should allow Jesus to suffer, for in doing this he was bringing vast multitudes of God’s people to heaven; for his suffering made Jesus a perfect Leader, one fit to bring them into their salvation.
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We who have been made holy by Jesus, now have the same Father he has. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers.
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For he says in the book of Psalms, “I will talk to my brothers about God my Father, and together we will sing his praises.”
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At another time he said, “I will put my trust in God along with my brothers.” And at still another time, “See, here am I and the children God gave me.”
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Since we, God’s children, are human beings—made of flesh and blood—he became flesh and blood too by being born in human form; for only as a human being could he die and in dying break the power of the devil who had the power of death.
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Only in that way could he deliver those who through fear of death have been living all their lives as slaves to constant dread.
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We all know he did not come as an angel but as a human being—yes, a Jew.
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And it was necessary for Jesus to be like us, his brothers, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God, a Priest who would be both merciful to us and faithful to God in dealing with the sins of the people.
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For since he himself has now been through suffering and temptation, he knows what it is like when we suffer and are tempted, and he is wonderfully able to help us.
I bless the holy name of God with all my heart.
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Yes, I will bless the Lord and not forget the glorious things he does for me.
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He forgives all my sins. He heals me.
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He ransoms me from hell. He surrounds me with loving-kindness and tender mercies.
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He fills my life with good things! My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
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He gives justice to all who are treated unfairly.
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He revealed his will and nature to Moses and the people of Israel.
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He is merciful and tender toward those who don’t deserve it; he is slow to get angry and full of kindness and love.
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He never bears a grudge, nor remains angry forever.
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He has not punished us as we deserve for all our sins,
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for his mercy toward those who fear and honor him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
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He has removed our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west.
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He is like a father to us, tender and sympathetic to those who reverence him.
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For he knows we are but dust
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and that our days are few and brief, like grass, like flowers,
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blown by the wind and gone forever.
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But the loving-kindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting to those who reverence him; his salvation is to children’s children of those who are faithful to his covenant and remember to obey him!
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The Lord has made the heavens his throne; from there he rules over everything there is.
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Bless the Lord, you mighty angels of his who carry out his orders, listening for each of his commands.
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Yes, bless the Lord, you armies of his angels who serve him constantly.
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Let everything everywhere bless the Lord. And how I bless him too!
Pretty words may hide a wicked heart, just as a pretty glaze covers a common clay pot.