They Have Afflicted Me from My Youth

A Song of ^(A)Ascents.

Jeremiah Warns Zedekiah Again

¹⁴ King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and received him at the third entrance of the temple of the Lord. The king said to Jeremiah, “I will ask you a question; hide nothing from me.” ¹⁵ Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I tell you, will you not surely put me to death? And if I give you counsel, you will not listen to me.” ¹⁶ Then King Zedekiah swore ^(A)secretly to Jeremiah, ^(B)“As the Lord lives, ^(C)who made our souls, I will not put you to death or deliver you into the hand of ^(D)these men who seek your life.”

¹⁷ Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: ^(E)If you will surrender to ^(F)the officials of the king of Babylon, ^(G)then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. ¹⁸ But if you do not surrender to ^(H)the officials of the king of Babylon, ^(I)then this city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, ^(J)and they shall burn it with fire, and you shall not escape from their hand.” ¹⁹ King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Judeans ^(K)who have deserted to the Chaldeans, lest I be handed over to them and they deal cruelly with me.” ²⁰ Jeremiah said, “You shall not be given to them. Obey now the voice of the Lord in what I say to you, ^(L)and it shall be well with you, and your life shall be spared. ²¹ But if you refuse to ^(M)surrender, this is the vision which the Lord has shown to me: ²² Behold, all the women left in the house of the king of Judah were being led out to the officials of the king of Babylon and were saying,

²³ All your wives and ^(O)your sons shall be led out to the Chaldeans, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand, but shall be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city shall be burned with fire.”

²⁴ Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no one know of these words, and you shall not die. ²⁵ If ^(P)the officials hear that I have spoken with you and come to you and say to you, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; hide nothing from us and we will not put you to death,’ ²⁶ then you shall say to them, ^(Q)‘I made a humble plea to the king that he would not send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’” ²⁷ Then all the officials came to Jeremiah and asked him, and he answered them as the king had instructed him. So they stopped speaking with him, for the conversation had not been overheard. ²⁸ And Jeremiah remained ^(R)in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken.

Lawsuits Against Believers

6 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous ^(A)instead of the saints? ² Or do you not know that ^(B)the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? ³ Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! ⁴ So if you have such cases, ^(C)why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? ^5 (D)I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, ⁶ but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? ⁷ To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. ^(E)Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸ But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even ^(F)your own brothers!^[a]

⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous^[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: ^(G)neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,^{[c] 10} nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And ^(H)such were some of you. But ^(I)you were washed, ^(J)you were sanctified, ^(K)you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.