Psalm 143

A psalm of David.

Jeremiah’s Land Purchase

32 The following message came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah,^[a] king of Judah. This was also the eighteenth year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar.^{[b] 2} Jerusalem was then under siege from the Babylonian army, and Jeremiah was imprisoned in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace. ³ King Zedekiah had put him there, asking why he kept giving this prophecy: “This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to hand this city over to the king of Babylon, and he will take it. ⁴ King Zedekiah will be captured by the Babylonians^[c] and taken to meet the king of Babylon face to face. ⁵ He will take Zedekiah to Babylon, and I will deal with him there,’ says the Lord. ‘If you fight against the Babylonians, you will never succeed.’”

⁶ At that time the Lord sent me a message. He said, ⁷ “Your cousin Hanamel son of Shallum will come and say to you, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth. By law you have the right to buy it before it is offered to anyone else.’”

⁸ Then, just as the Lord had said he would, my cousin Hanamel came and visited me in the prison. He said, “Please buy my field at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. By law you have the right to buy it before it is offered to anyone else, so buy it for yourself.” Then I knew that the message I had heard was from the Lord.

⁹ So I bought the field at Anathoth, paying Hanamel seventeen pieces^[d] of silver for it.

A Promise of Restoration

³⁶ “Now I want to say something more about this city. You have been saying, ‘It will fall to the king of Babylon through war, famine, and disease.’ But this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ³⁷ I will certainly bring my people back again from all the countries where I will scatter them in my fury. I will bring them back to this very city and let them live in peace and safety. ³⁸ They will be my people, and I will be their God. ³⁹ And I will give them one heart and one purpose: to worship me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants. ⁴⁰ And I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good for them. I will put a desire in their hearts to worship me, and they will never leave me. ⁴¹ I will find joy doing good for them and will faithfully and wholeheartedly replant them in this land.

Discussion about Resurrection

²³ That same day Jesus was approached by some Sadducees—religious leaders who say there is no resurrection from the dead. They posed this question: ²⁴ “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies without children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother’s name.’^{[a] 25} Well, suppose there were seven brothers. The oldest one married and then died without children, so his brother married the widow. ²⁶ But the second brother also died, and the third brother married her. This continued with all seven of them. ²⁷ Last of all, the woman also died. ²⁸ So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For all seven were married to her.”

²⁹ Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. ³⁰ For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.

³¹ “But now, as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead—haven’t you ever read about this in the Scriptures? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said,^{[b] 32} ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’^[c] So he is the God of the living, not the dead.”

³³ When the crowds heard him, they were astounded at his teaching.