The Coming Messenger

²⁰ Now then, we are ^(A)ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.

¹³ Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, spoke the Lord’s message to the people, saying, ^(A)“I am with you, says the Lord.”

⁵ And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:

^7 (C)If^[b] you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what ^(D)son is there whom a father does not chasten? ⁸ But if you are without chastening, ^(E)of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. ⁹ Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to ^(F)the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, ^(G)that we may be partakers of His holiness. ¹¹ Now no ^[c]chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields ^(H)the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Renew Your Spiritual Vitality^(I)

¹² Therefore ^(J)strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

¹⁴ Therefore the Lord has ^(A)kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for ^(B)the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.

²⁵ “Yet you say, ^(A)‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair? ^26 (B)When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies in it, it is because of the iniquity which he has done that he dies. ²⁷ Again, ^(C)when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness which he committed, and does what is lawful and right, he preserves himself alive. ²⁸ Because he ^(D)considers and turns away from all the transgressions which he committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die.