Psalms 81; 1 Thessalonians 4; Jeremiah 7; Jeremiah 8

Psalms 81

1 Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob!

2 Begin the music, strike the timbrel, play the melodious harp and lyre.

3 Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our festival;

4 this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.

5 When God went out against Egypt, he established it as a statute for Joseph. I heard an unknown voice say:

6 “I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket.

7 In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of a thundercloud; I tested you at the waters of Meribah.

8 Hear me, my people, and I will warn you— if you would only listen to me, Israel!

9 You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not worship any god other than me.

10 I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

11 “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.

12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.

13 “If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways,

14 how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!

15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.

16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

1 Thessalonians 4

1 As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.

2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;

4 that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable,

5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;

6 and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.

7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life.

8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.

9 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

10 And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more,

11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,

12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.

14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Jeremiah 7

1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

2 “Stand at the gate of the LORD’s house and there proclaim this message: “ ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD.

3 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place.

4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!”

5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly,

6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm,

7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever.

8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

9 “ ‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known,

10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things?

11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.

12 “ ‘Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel.

13 While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer.

14 Therefore, what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your ancestors.

15 I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim.’

16 “So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you.

17 Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

18 The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger.

19 But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?

20 “ ‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place—on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the crops of your land—and it will burn and not be quenched.

21 “ ‘This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves!

22 For when I brought your ancestors out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices,

23 but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in obedience to all I command you, that it may go well with you.

24 But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.

25 From the time your ancestors left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets.

26 But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors.’

27 “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer.

28 Therefore say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the LORD its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips.

29 “ ‘Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.

30 “ ‘The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the LORD. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it.

31 They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.

32 So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.

33 Then the carcasses of this people will become food for the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away.

34 I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.

Jeremiah 8

1 “ ‘At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings and officials of Judah, the bones of the priests and prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.

2 They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars of the heavens, which they have loved and served and which they have followed and consulted and worshiped. They will not be gathered up or buried, but will be like dung lying on the ground.

3 Wherever I banish them, all the survivors of this evil nation will prefer death to life, declares the LORD Almighty.’

4 “Say to them, ‘This is what the LORD says: “ ‘When people fall down, do they not get up? When someone turns away, do they not return?

5 Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return.

6 I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle.

7 Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the LORD.

8 “ ‘How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?

9 The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have?

10 Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit.

11 They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace.

12 Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they are punished, says the LORD.

13 “ ‘I will take away their harvest, declares the LORD. There will be no grapes on the vine. There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither. What I have given them will be taken from them. ’ ”

14 Why are we sitting here? Gather together! Let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there! For the LORD our God has doomed us to perish and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against him.

15 We hoped for peace but no good has come, for a time of healing but there is only terror.

16 The snorting of the enemy’s horses is heard from Dan; at the neighing of their stallions the whole land trembles. They have come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who live there.

17 “See, I will send venomous snakes among you, vipers that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you,” declares the LORD.

18 You who are my Comforter in sorrow, my heart is faint within me.

19 Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: “Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King no longer there?” “Why have they aroused my anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?”

20 “The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.”

21 Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me.

22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?