Jeremiah 42 - 43, 1 Corinthians 5 - 6, Psalms 113 - 114

The People Ask Jeremiah to Pray

42Then all the ¹commanders of the military forces, ^aJohanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people ^bboth small and great approached ²and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please let our ^asupplication ¹come before you, and ^bpray for us to Yahweh your God, that is for all this remnant, because we remain but a ^cfew out of many, as your own eyes now see us, ³that Yahweh your God may tell us the ^away in which we should walk and the thing that we should do.” ⁴Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard you. Behold, I am going to ^apray to Yahweh your God in accordance with your words; and I will tell you the whole ¹message which ^bYahweh will answer you. I will ^cnot keep back a word from you.” ⁵And they said to Jeremiah, “May ^aYahweh be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole ¹message with which Yahweh your God will send you to us. ⁶“Whether it is good or bad, we will ^alisten to the voice of Yahweh our God to whom we are sending you, so that good ^bmay come to us when we listen to the voice of Yahweh our God.”

⁷Now it happened that at the ^aend of ten days the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah. ⁸Then he called for Johanan the son of Kareah and all the ¹commanders of the military forces that were with him, and for all the people both small and great, ⁹and said to them, “Thus ^asays 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 ^abuild you up and not pull you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I have ¹^,^brelented of the calamity that I have done against you. ¹¹‘^aDo not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him,’ declares Yahweh, ‘for ^bI am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand. ¹²‘I will also show you compassion, so that ^ahe will have compassion on you and return you to your own soil. ¹³‘But if you are going to say, “We will ^anot stay in this land,” so as not to listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, ¹⁴saying, “No, but we will ^ago to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war or ^bhear the sound of a trumpet or hunger for bread, and we will stay there,” ¹⁵then 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 ^aEgypt, and you will enter to sojourn there, ¹⁶then the ^asword, which you are afraid of, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are anxious, will ¹follow 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 ^asword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; and they will ^bhave no survivors or any who escaped from the calamity that I am going to bring on them.”’”

¹⁸For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “As My ^aanger 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 ^bcurse, an object of horror, an imprecation, and a reproach; and ^cyou will see this place no more.” ¹⁹Yahweh has spoken to you, O remnant of Judah, “Do not ^ago into Egypt!” You should clearly ^bknow that today I have ^ctestified against you. ²⁰For you have only ¹^,^aled 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.” ²¹So I have ^atold you today, but you have ^bnot listened to the voice of Yahweh your God, even according to all that He has sent me to tell you. ²²So now, you should clearly know that you will ^adie by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, in the ^bplace where you desire to go to sojourn.

Jeremiah Taken to Egypt

43But it happened that as soon as Jeremiah, whom Yahweh their God had sent, had ^afinished speaking to all the people all the words of Yahweh their God—that is, all these words— ²Azariah the ^ason of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are ^bspeaking a lie! Yahweh our God has not sent you to say, ‘You are not to enter Egypt to sojourn there’; ³but ^aBaruch 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.” ⁴So ^aJohanan the son of Kareah and all the ¹commanders of the military forces and all the people ^bdid not listen to the voice of Yahweh to ^cstay in the land of Judah. ⁵But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the ¹commanders of the military forces took the ^aentire 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— ⁶the men, the women, the little ones, the ^aking’s daughters, and ^bevery person that Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam ¹and grandson of Shaphan, together with ^cJeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah— ⁷and they entered the land of Egypt (for they did not listen to the voice of Yahweh) and went in as far as ^aTahpanhes.

⁸Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah in ^aTahpanhes, saying, ⁹“Take some large stones in your ¹hands and hide them in the mortar in the ²brick terrace which is at the entrance of Pharaoh’s house in Tahpanhes, in the sight of ³some of the Jews; ¹⁰and you will say to them, ‘Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am going to send and get ^aNebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, ^bMy servant, and I am going to set his throne right over these stones that I have hidden; and he will spread his ^ccanopy over them. ¹¹“He will also come and ^astrike the land of Egypt; those who are meant for death will be given over to death, and those for captivity to captivity, and ^bthose for the sword to the sword. ¹²“And ¹I shall set fire to the houses of the ^agods of Egypt, and he will burn them and take them captive. So he will ^bwrap 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 ¹sacred pillars of ²Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt he will burn with fire.”’”

Sexual Immorality in the Church

5It 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 ^ahis father’s wife. ²And ¹you ^ahave become puffed up and ²have not ^bmourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be ^cremoved from your midst.

³For I, on my part, though ^aabsent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present: ⁴^ain the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and ¹I with you in spirit, ^bwith the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵^adeliver such a one to ^bSatan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in ^cthe day of ¹the Lord.

⁶^aYour boasting is not good. ^bDo you not know that ^ca little leaven leavens the whole lump? ⁷Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ, our ^aPassover lamb, also was sacrificed. ⁸Therefore let us celebrate the feast, ^anot with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹I wrote you in my letter ^anot to associate with sexually immoral people; ¹⁰I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the greedy and swindlers, or with ^aidolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. ¹¹But now I am writing to you not to associate ¹with any so-called ^abrother if he is a sexually immoral person, or greedy, or ^ban idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. ¹²For what have I to do with judging ^aoutsiders? ^bAre you not to judge those who are within the church? ¹³But those who are outside, God will judge. ^aRemove the wicked man from among yourselves.

Lawsuits Among Believers

6Does any one of you, when he has a ¹case against another, dare to be tried before the unrighteous and ^anot before the ²saints? ²Or ^ado you not know that ^bthe ¹saints will judge ^cthe world? If the world is judged by you, are you not worthy to ²constitute the smallest law courts? ³^aDo you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? ⁴So 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^aI 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 ^bbrothers? ⁶On the contrary, brother is tried with brother, and that before ^aunbelievers!

⁷Actually, then, it is already a failure for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. ^aWhy not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your ^abrothers.

⁹Or ^ado you not know that the unrighteous will not ^binherit the kingdom of God? ^cDo not be deceived; ^dneither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor ¹effeminate, nor homosexuals, ¹⁰nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will ^ainherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹^aAnd such were some of you; but you were ^bwashed, but you were ^csanctified, but you were ^djustified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Flee Sexual Immorality

¹²^aAll 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^aFood is for the ¹stomach and the ²stomach is for food, but God will ^bdo away with both ³of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality, but ^cfor the Lord, and ^dthe Lord is for the body. ¹⁴Now God has not only ^araised the Lord, but ^bwill also raise us up through His power. ¹⁵^aDo you not know that ^byour bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? ^cMay it never be! ¹⁶Or ^ado you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “^bThe two shall become one flesh.” ¹⁷But the one who joins himself to the Lord is ^aone spirit with Him. ¹⁸^aFlee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the ¹sexually immoral man sins against his own body. ¹⁹Or ^ado you not know that ^byour body is a ¹sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from ²God, and that ^cyou are not your own? ²⁰For ^ayou were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in ^byour body.

Who Is like Yahweh Our God?

113¹Praise Yah!^aPraise, O ^bslaves of Yahweh,Praise the name of Yahweh.²^aMay the name of Yahweh be blessedFrom now until forever.³^aFrom the rising of the sun to its settingThe ^bname of Yahweh is to be praised.⁴Yahweh is ^ahigh above all nations;His ^bglory is above the heavens.⁵^aWho is like Yahweh our God,The One who ^bsits on high,⁶The One who ¹^,^abrings Himself low to seeThe things in heaven and on the earth?⁷Who ^araises the poor from the dustAnd lifts high the needy from the ash heap,⁸To make them ^asit with ¹nobles,With the ²nobles of His people.⁹He ^amakes the barren woman of the house sitAs a glad mother of children.¹Praise Yah!

When Israel Went Out from Egypt

114When Israel went out ^afrom Egypt,The house of Jacob from a people of ^bstrange language,²Judah became ^aHis sanctuary,Israel, ^bHis dominion.³The ^asea looked and fled;The ^bJordan turned back.⁴The mountains ^askipped like rams,The hills, like lambs.⁵What ^adisturbs you, O sea, that you flee?O Jordan, that you turn back?⁶O mountains, that you skip like rams?O hills, like lambs?⁷^aTremble, O earth, before the Lord,Before the God of Jacob,⁸Who ^aturned the rock into a ^bpool of water,The ^cflint into a spring of water.