Nebuchadnezzar's Golden Image

3 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits^[a] and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on ^(A)the plain of Dura, in ^(B)the province of Babylon. ² Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather ^(C)the satraps, the prefects, and ^(D)the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. ³ Then ^(E)the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. ⁴ And the herald ^(F)proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O ^(G)peoples, nations, and languages, ⁵ that when you hear the ^(H)sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you ^(I)are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. ⁶ And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately ^(J)be cast into a burning fiery furnace.” ⁷ Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all ^(K)the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

The Fiery Furnace

⁸ Therefore at that time certain ^(L)Chaldeans ^(M)came forward and maliciously accused the Jews. ⁹ They declared^[b] to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! ¹⁰ You, O king, ^(N)have made a decree, that every man who ^(O)hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, ^(P)shall fall down and worship the golden image. ¹¹ And whoever does not fall down and worship ^(Q)shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace. ¹² There are certain Jews whom you have ^(R)appointed over the affairs of ^(S)the province of Babylon: ^(T)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, ^(U)pay no attention to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

¹³ Then Nebuchadnezzar ^(V)in furious rage commanded that ^(W)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. ¹⁴ Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? ¹⁵ Now if you are ready when ^(X)you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good.^[c] But if you do not worship, ^(Y)you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And ^(Z)who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”

^16 (AA)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. ¹⁷ If this be so, ^(AB)our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.^{[d] 18} But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

¹⁹ Then Nebuchadnezzar was ^(AC)filled with fury, and the expression of his face ^(AD)was changed against ^(AE)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. ²⁰ And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army ^(AF)to bind ^(AG)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. ²¹ Then these men were ^(AH)bound in their cloaks, their tunics,^[e] their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. ²² Because the king's order was ^(AI)urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up ^(AJ)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. ²³ And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell ^(AK)bound into the burning fiery furnace.

²⁴ Then King Nebuchadnezzar was ^(AL)astonished and rose up ^(AM)in haste. He declared to his ^(AN)counselors, “Did we not cast three men ^(AO)bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” ²⁵ He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, ^(AP)walking in the midst of the fire, and they ^(AQ)are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like ^(AR)a son of the gods.”

²⁶ Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, ^(AS)“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the ^(AT)Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then ^(AU)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. ²⁷ And the ^(AV)satraps, the prefects, the governors, and ^(AW)the king's counselors gathered together and saw that ^(AX)the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their ^(AY)cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. ²⁸ Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of ^(AZ)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who ^(BA)has sent his angel and ^(BB)delivered his servants, who ^(BC)trusted in him, and set aside^[f] the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than ^(BD)serve and worship any god except their own God. ²⁹ Therefore ^(BE)I make a decree: Any ^(BF)people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of ^(BG)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego ^(BH)shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” ³⁰ Then the king promoted ^(BI)Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in ^(BJ)the province of Babylon.

Rebuilding the Altar

3 ^(A)When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem. ² Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and ^(B)Zerubbabel the son of ^(C)Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, ^(D)as it is written in the Law of Moses the ^(E)man of God. ³ They set the altar in its place, ^(F)for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and ^(G)they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening. ^4 (H)And they kept the Feast of Booths, ^(I)as it is written, ^(J)and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required, ⁵ and after that the regular burnt ^(K)offerings, the offerings at the new moon ^(L)and at all the appointed feasts of the Lord, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the Lord. ⁶ From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. ⁷ So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, ^(M)and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians ^(N)to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, ^(O)according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia.

Rebuilding the Temple

⁸ Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, ^(P)Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and ^(Q)Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity. They ^(R)appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to ^(S)supervise the work of the house of the Lord. ⁹ And ^(T)Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together ^(U)supervised the workmen in the house of God, along with the ^(V)sons of Henadad and the Levites, their sons and brothers.

¹⁰ And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, ^(W)according to the directions of David king of Israel. ¹¹ And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord,

And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. ¹² But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, ^(Y)old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, ¹³ so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

Lay Up Treasures in Heaven

^19 (A)“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where ^(B)moth and rust^[a] destroy and where thieves ^(C)break in and steal, ^20 (D)but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

^22 (E)“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ^23 (F)but if ^(G)your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

^24 (H)“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and ^(I)money.^[b]

Do Not Be Anxious

^25 (J)“Therefore I tell you, ^(K)do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ^26 (L)Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. ^(M)Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his ^(N)span of life?^{[c] 28} And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, ^(O)even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, ^(P)O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For ^(Q)the Gentiles seek after all these things, and ^(R)your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But ^(S)seek first ^(T)the kingdom of God and his righteousness, ^(U)and all these things will be added to you.

^34 (V)“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

²⁶ For consider your calling, brothers: ^(A)not many of you were wise according to worldly standards,^[a] not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But ^(B)God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; ^(C)God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, even ^(D)things that are not, to ^(E)bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so ^(F)that no human being^[b] might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰ And because of him^[c] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us ^(G)wisdom from God, ^(H)righteousness and ^(I)sanctification and ^(J)redemption, ³¹ so that, as it is written, ^(K)“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Proclaiming Christ Crucified

2 And I, when I came to you, brothers,^{[d] (L)}did not come proclaiming to you ^(M)the testimony^[e] of God with lofty speech or wisdom. ² For I decided to know nothing among you except ^(N)Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ And ^(O)I was with you ^(P)in weakness and in fear and much trembling, ⁴ and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of ^(Q)the Spirit and of power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men^[f] but ^(R)in the power of God.

Wisdom from the Spirit

⁶ Yet among ^(S)the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not ^(T)a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, ^(U)who are doomed to pass away. ⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, ^(V)which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸ None of ^(W)the rulers of this age understood this, for ^(X)if they had, they would not have crucified ^(Y)the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as it is written,

²⁶ For consider your calling, brothers: ^(A)not many of you were wise according to worldly standards,^[a] not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But ^(B)God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; ^(C)God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, even ^(D)things that are not, to ^(E)bring to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so ^(F)that no human being^[b] might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰ And because of him^[c] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us ^(G)wisdom from God, ^(H)righteousness and ^(I)sanctification and ^(J)redemption, ³¹ so that, as it is written, ^(K)“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Proclaiming Christ Crucified

2 And I, when I came to you, brothers,^{[d] (L)}did not come proclaiming to you ^(M)the testimony^[e] of God with lofty speech or wisdom. ² For I decided to know nothing among you except ^(N)Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ And ^(O)I was with you ^(P)in weakness and in fear and much trembling, ⁴ and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of ^(Q)the Spirit and of power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men^[f] but ^(R)in the power of God.

Wisdom from the Spirit

⁶ Yet among ^(S)the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not ^(T)a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, ^(U)who are doomed to pass away. ⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, ^(V)which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸ None of ^(W)the rulers of this age understood this, for ^(X)if they had, they would not have crucified ^(Y)the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as it is written,