Jeremiah 42 - 43

The People Ask Jeremiah to Pray

Then all the commanders of the military forces, Johanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people both small and great approached 2 and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our supplication come before you, and pray for us to Yahweh your God, that is for all this remnant, because we remain but a few out of many, as your own eyes now see us, 3 that Yahweh your God may tell us the way in which we should walk and the thing that we should do.” 4 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I am going to pray to Yahweh your God in accordance with your words; and I will tell you the whole message which Yahweh will answer you. I will not keep back a word from you.” 5 And they said to Jeremiah, “May Yahweh be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole message with which Yahweh your God will send you to us. 6 Whether it is good or bad, we will listen to the voice of Yahweh our God to whom we are sending you, so that good may come to us when we listen to the voice of Yahweh our God.” 7 Now it happened that at the end of ten days the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah. 8 Then he called for Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the military forces that were with him, and for all the people both small and great, 9 and said to them, “Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your supplication before Him: 10 ‘If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I have relented of the calamity that I have done against you. 11 Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him,’ declares Yahweh, ‘for I am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand. 12 I will also show you compassion, so that he will have compassion on you and return you to your own soil. 13 But if you are going to say, “We will not stay in this land,” so as not to listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, 14 saying, “No, but we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war or hear the sound of a trumpet or hunger for bread, and we will stay there,” 15 then now, listen to the word of Yahweh, O remnant of Judah. Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “If you really set your face to enter Egypt, and you will enter to sojourn there, 16 then the sword, which you are afraid of, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are anxious, will follow closely after you there in Egypt, and you will die there. 17 So all the men who set their face to go to Egypt to sojourn there will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and they will have no survivors or any who escaped from the calamity that I am going to bring on them.”’” 18 For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “As My anger and wrath have been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so My wrath will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. And you will become a curse, an object of horror, an imprecation, and a reproach; and you will see this place no more.” 19 Yahweh has spoken to you, O remnant of Judah, “Do not go into Egypt!” You should clearly know that today I have testified against you. 20 For you have only led yourselves astray; for it is you who sent me to Yahweh your God, saying, “Pray for us to Yahweh our God; and according to all that Yahweh our God says, tell us so, and we will do it.” 21 So I have told you today, but you have not listened to the voice of Yahweh your God, even according to all that He has sent me to tell you. 22 So now, you should clearly know that you will die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, in the place where you desire to go to sojourn.

Jeremiah Taken to Egypt

But it happened that as soon as Jeremiah, whom Yahweh their God had sent, had finished speaking to all the people all the words of Yahweh their God—that is, all these words— 2 Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are speaking a lie! Yahweh our God has not sent you to say, ‘You are not to enter Egypt to sojourn there’; 3 but Baruch the son of Neriah is inciting you against us to give us over into the hand of the Chaldeans, so they will put us to death or exile us to Babylon.” 4 So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the military forces and all the people did not listen to the voice of Yahweh to stay in the land of Judah. 5 But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the military forces took the entire remnant of Judah, who had returned from all the nations to which they had been banished, in order to sojourn in the land of Judah— 6 the men, the women, the little ones, the king’s daughters, and every person that Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, together with Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah— 7 and they entered the land of Egypt (for they did not listen to the voice of Yahweh) and went in as far as Tahpanhes. 8 Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes, saying, 9 “Take some large stones in your hands and hide them in the mortar in the brick terrace which is at the entrance of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of some of the Jews; 10 and you will say to them, ‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am going to send and get Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and I am going to set his throne right over these stones that I have hidden; and he will spread his canopy over them. 11 He will also come and strike the land of Egypt; those who are meant for death will be given over to death, and those for captivity to captivity, and those for the sword to the sword. 12 And I shall set fire to the houses of the gods of Egypt, and he will burn them and take them captive. So he will wrap himself with the land of Egypt as a shepherd wraps himself with his garment, and he will depart from there safely. 13 He will also shatter the sacred pillars of Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt he will burn with fire.”’”

1 Corinthians 5 - 6

Sexual Immorality in the Church

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and sexual immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. 2 And you have become puffed up and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. 3 For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present: 4 in the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, also was sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people; 10 I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the greedy and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Are you not to judge those who are within the church? 13 But those who are outside, God will judge. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

Lawsuits Among Believers

Does any one of you, when he has a case against another, dare to be tried before the unrighteous and not before the saints? 2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not worthy to constitute the smallest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? 4 So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint those who are of no account in the church as judges? 5 I say this to your shame. Is it really this way: there is not one wise man among you who will be able to pass judgment between his brothers? 6 On the contrary, brother is tried with brother, and that before unbelievers! 7 Actually, then, it is already a failure for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brothers. 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Flee Sexual Immorality

12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14 Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

Psalm 113 - 114

Who Is like Yahweh Our God?

Praise Yah!

Praise, O slaves of Yahweh,

Praise the name of Yahweh.

May the name of Yahweh be blessed

From now until forever.

From the rising of the sun to its setting

The name of Yahweh is to be praised.

Yahweh is high above all nations;

His glory is above the heavens.

Who is like Yahweh our God,

The One who sits on high,

The One who brings Himself low to see

The things in heaven and on the earth?

Who raises the poor from the dust

And lifts high the needy from the ash heap,

To make them sit with nobles,

With the nobles of His people.

He makes the barren woman of the house sit

As a glad mother of children.

Praise Yah!

When Israel Went Out from Egypt

When Israel went out from Egypt,

The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,

Judah became His sanctuary,

Israel, His dominion.

The sea looked and fled;

The Jordan turned back.

The mountains skipped like rams,

The hills, like lambs.

What disturbs you, O sea, that you flee?

O Jordan, that you turn back?

O mountains, that you skip like rams?

O hills, like lambs?

Tremble, O earth, before the Lord,

Before the God of Jacob,

Who turned the rock into a pool of water,

The flint into a spring of water.