Jeremiah 3 - 4, Romans 1, Psalm 97 — Legacy Standard Bible

The Polluted Land

3God ¹says, “^aIf a husband divorces his wifeAnd she goes from himAnd belongs to another man,Will he still return to her?Will not that land be completely ²polluted?But you ^bare a harlot with many ³lovers;Yet you ^cturn to Me,” declares Yahweh.²“Lift up your eyes to the ^abare heights and see;Where have you not been ravished?By the roads you have ^bsat for themLike ¹an Arab in the wilderness,And you have ^cpolluted a landWith your harlotry and with your evil.³“Therefore the ^ashowers have been withheld,And the ¹late rain has not ²come.Yet you had a ^bharlot’s forehead;You refused to feel dishonor.⁴“Have you not just now called to Me,‘^aMy Father, You are the ¹^,^bclose companion of my ^cyouth?⁵‘^aWill He be angry forever?Will He keep it to the end?’Behold, you have spokenAnd have done evil things,And you have ¹had your way.”

Faithless Israel Called to Repentance

⁶Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She ^awent up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. ⁷“^aI said, ‘After she has done all these things, she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her ^btreacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸“And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and ^agiven her a certificate of divorce, yet her ^btreacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. ⁹“So it was, because of the lightness of her harlotry, that she ^apolluted the land and committed adultery with ^bstones and trees. ¹⁰“Yet in spite of all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in ^alying,” declares Yahweh.

¹¹And Yahweh said to me, “^aFaithless Israel has proved herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. ¹²“Go and call out these words toward the north and say, ‘¹^,^aReturn, faithless Israel,’ declares Yahweh;‘^bI will not ²look upon you in anger.For I am ^cOne of lovingkindness,’ declares Yahweh;‘I will not be angry forever.

¹³‘Only ¹^,^aacknowledge your iniquity,That you have transgressed against Yahweh your GodAnd have ^bscattered your ways of harlotry to the strangers ^cunder every green tree,And you have not listened to My voice,’ declares Yahweh.¹⁴‘¹Return, O faithless sons,’ declares Yahweh;‘For I am a ^amaster to you,And I will take you one from a city and two from a family,And ^bI will bring you to Zion.’

¹⁵“Then I will give you ^ashepherds after My own heart, who will ¹^,^bshepherd you on knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶“It shall be in those days when you are multiplied and fruitful in the land,” declares Yahweh, “they will ^ano longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of Yahweh.’ And it will not come upon the heart, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again. ¹⁷“At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The ^aThrone of Yahweh,’ and ^ball the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the ^cname of Yahweh; nor will they ^dwalk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart. ¹⁸“^aIn those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together ^bfrom the land of the north to the ^cland that I gave your fathers as an inheritance.

¹⁹“Then I said, ‘How I would set you among ¹My sonsAnd give you a pleasant land,The most ^abeautiful inheritance of the nations!’And I said, ‘You shall call Me, ^b“My Father,”And not turn away from following Me.’

²⁰“Surely, as a woman treacherously departs from her ¹lover,So you have ^adealt treacherously with Me,O house of Israel,” declares Yahweh.²¹A voice is heard on the ^abare heights,The weeping and the supplications of the sons of Israel;Because they have perverted their way,They have ^bforgotten Yahweh their God.²²¹“Return, O faithless sons;^aI will heal your faithlessness.”“Behold, we come to You,For You are Yahweh our God.²³“Surely, ^athe hills are a lie,A tumult on the mountains.Surely in ^bYahweh our GodIs the salvation of Israel.

²⁴“But ^athe shameful thing has devoured the labor of our fathers since our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. ²⁵“Let us lie down in our ^ashame, and let our dishonor cover us; for we have sinned against Yahweh our God, we and our fathers, ^bfrom our youth even to this day. And we have not listened to the voice of Yahweh our God.”

Yahweh Calls Israel to Return to Him

4“If you will ^areturn, O Israel,” declares Yahweh,“Then you should return to Me.And ^bif you will put away your detested things from My presenceAnd will not waver²And you will ^aswear, ‘As Yahweh lives,’^bIn truth, in justice, and in righteousness;Then the ^cnations will ¹be blessed in Him,And ^din Him they will boast.”

³For thus says Yahweh to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “¹^,^aBreak up your fallow ground,And ^bdo not sow among thorns.

⁴“^aCircumcise yourselves to YahwehAnd remove the foreskins of your heart,Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,Lest My ^bwrath go forth like fireAnd burn with ^cnone to quench itBecause of the evil of your deeds.”

Evil from the North

⁵Declare in Judah and make it heard in Jerusalem and say,“^aBlow the trumpet in the land;Call out, make your voice full, and say,‘^bGather yourselves, and let us goInto the fortified cities.’⁶“Lift up a ^astandard toward Zion!Seek safety, do not stand still,For I am bringing ^bevil from the north,And great destruction.⁷“A ^alion has gone up from his thicket,And a ^bdestroyer of nations has set out;He has gone out from his placeTo ^cmake your land a desolation.Your cities will be turned into ruinsWithout inhabitant.⁸“For this, ^aI gird myself with sackcloth,Lament and wail;For the ^bburning anger of YahwehHas not turned back from us.”

⁹“It will be in that day,” declares Yahweh, “that the ^aheart of the king and the heart of the princes will perish; and the priests will be appalled, and the ^bprophets will be astonished.”

¹⁰Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Surely You have utterly ^adeceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘^bYou will have peace’; whereas a sword touches the ¹throat.”

¹¹In that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A ¹^,^ascorching wind from the bare heights in the wilderness along the way of the daughter of My people—not to winnow and not to cleanse, ¹²a wind too full for these things—will come ¹for My purpose; now I will also speak judgments against them.

¹³“Behold, he ^agoes up like clouds,And his ^bchariots like the whirlwind;His horses are ^cswifter than eagles.Woe to us, for ^dwe are devastated!”¹⁴Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem,That you may be saved.How long will your ^awicked thoughtsLodge within you?¹⁵For a voice declares from ^aDan,And makes wickedness heard from Mount Ephraim.¹⁶“Make mention of it to the nations, saying, ‘Behold!’Make it heard over Jerusalem,‘Besiegers come from a ^afar country,And ^bgive forth their voices against the cities of Judah.¹⁷‘Like watchmen of a field they are ^aagainst her round aboutBecause she has ^brebelled against Me,’ declares Yahweh.¹⁸“Your ^aways and your deedsHave done these things to you.This is your evil. How ^bbitter!How it has touched your heart!”

Anguish over Judah’s Desolation

¹⁹^aMy ¹soul, my ²soul! I am in anguish! ³Oh, my heart!My ^bheart is pounding in me;I cannot be silentBecause ⁴you have heard, O my soul,The ^csound of the trumpet,The shout of war.²⁰^aDestruction upon destruction is called out,For the ^bwhole land is devastated;Suddenly my ^ctents are devastated,My curtains in an instant.²¹How long must I see the standardAnd hear the sound of the trumpet?²²“^aFor My people are ignorant fools,They know Me not;They are simpleminded childrenAnd have no understanding.They are wise to ^bdo evil,But to do good they do not know.”²³I saw on the earth, and behold, it was ¹^,^aformless and void;And to the heavens, and they had no light.²⁴I saw on the mountains, and behold, they were ^aquaking,And all the hills ¹moved to and fro.²⁵I saw, and behold, there was no man,And all the ^abirds of the sky had fled.²⁶I saw, and behold, ¹the ^afruitful orchard was a wilderness,And all its cities were torn downBefore Yahweh, before His burning anger.

²⁷For thus says Yahweh, “The ^awhole land shall be a desolation,Yet I will ^bnot execute a complete destruction.

²⁸“For this the ^aearth shall mournAnd the ^bheavens above be darkBecause I have ^cspoken; I have purposed,And I will not ¹relent, nor will I turn from it.”²⁹At the sound of the horseman and bowman ^aevery city flees;They ^bgo into the thickets and climb up among the rocks;^cEvery city is forsaken,And no man inhabits them.³⁰And you, O devastated one, ^awhat will you do?Although you dress in scarlet,Although you decorate yourself with ornaments of gold,Although you ^benlarge your eyes with paint,In vain you make yourself beautiful.Your ¹^,^clovers despise you;They seek your life.³¹For I heard a sound as of a woman in labor pains,The distress as of one giving birth to her first child,The sound of the daughter of Zion ^agasping for breath,^bStretching out her ¹hands, saying,“Ah, woe is me, for my soul faints before murderers.”

The Gospel Exalted

1Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, ¹^,^acalled as an apostle, having been ^bset apart for ^cthe gospel of God, ²which He ^apromised beforehand through His ^bprophets in the holy Scriptures, ³concerning His Son, who was born ^aof the seed of David ^baccording to the flesh, ⁴who was designated as ^athe Son of God in power, according to the ¹Spirit of holiness, ²by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, ⁵through whom we received grace and ^aapostleship for the ^bobedience of faith among ^call the Gentiles for the sake of His name, ⁶among whom you also are the ^acalled of Jesus Christ;

⁷to all who are ^abeloved of God in Rome, called as ¹^,^bsaints: ^cGrace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸First, ^aI thank my God through Jesus Christ ¹for you all, because ^byour faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. ⁹For ^aGod, whom I ^bserve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son, is my witness as to how without ceasing ^cI make mention of you, ¹⁰always in my prayers earnestly asking, if perhaps now at last by ^athe will of God I may succeed in coming to you. ¹¹For ^aI long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be strengthened; ¹²that is, to be mutually encouraged, while among you, by each other’s faith, both yours and mine. ¹³^aI do not want you to be unaware, ^bbrothers, that often I ^chave planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may have some ^dfruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. ¹⁴^aI am ¹under obligation both to Greeks and to ^bbarbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. ¹⁵In this way, for my part, I am eager to ^aproclaim the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

¹⁶For I am not ^aashamed of the gospel, for ^bit is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the ^cJew first and also to ^dthe Greek. ¹⁷For in it ^athe righteousness of God is revealed ¹from faith to faith; as it is written, “²^,^bBut the righteous will live by faith.”

God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness

¹⁸For ^athe wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who ^bsuppress the truth ¹in unrighteousness, ¹⁹because ^athat which is known about God is evident ¹within them; for God made it evident to them. ²⁰For ^asince the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, ^bbeing understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. ²¹For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became ^afutile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²²^aProfessing to be wise, they became fools, ²³and ^aexchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

²⁴Therefore ^aGod gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be ^bdishonored among them. ²⁵For they exchanged the truth of God for ¹a ^alie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, ^bwho is blessed ²forever. Amen.

²⁶For this reason ^aGod gave them over to ^bdishonorable passions; for their ^cfemales exchanged the natural function for that which is ¹unnatural, ²⁷and in the same way also the ^amales abandoned the natural function of the female and burned in their desire toward one another, ^bmales with males committing ¹indecent acts and receiving in ²their own persons the due penalty of their error.

²⁸And just as they did not see fit ¹to acknowledge God, ^aGod gave them over to an unfit mind, to do those things which are not proper, ²⁹having been filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are ^agossips, ³⁰slanderers, ¹^,^ahaters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, ^bdisobedient to parents, ³¹without understanding, untrustworthy, ^aunloving, unmerciful; ³²and although they know the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of ^adeath, they not only do the same, but also ^bgive hearty approval to those who practice them.

Remember His Holy Name

97^aYahweh ¹reigns, let the ^bearth rejoice;Let the many ^ccoastlands be glad.²^aClouds and thick darkness are all around Him;^bRighteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.³^aFire goes before HimAnd ^bburns up His adversaries all around.⁴His ^alightnings light up the world;The earth sees and ^btrembles.⁵The mountains ^amelt like wax at the presence of Yahweh,At the presence of the ^bLord of all the earth.⁶The ^aheavens declare His righteousness,And ^ball the peoples see His glory.⁷Let all those be ashamed who serve ^agraven images,Who boast of ^bidols;¹^,^cWorship Him, all you ²gods!⁸Zion ¹heard this and ^awas glad,And the daughters of Judah have rejoicedBecause of Your judgments, O Yahweh.⁹For You are Yahweh ^aMost High over all the earth;You are exalted far ^babove all ¹gods.¹⁰^aHate evil, you who love Yahweh,Who ^bkeeps the souls of His holy ones;He ^cdelivers them from the hand of the wicked.¹¹^aLight is sown for the righteousAnd ^bgladness for the upright in heart.¹²Be ^aglad in Yahweh, you righteous ones,And ^bgive thanks for the remembrance of ¹His holy name.