I Will Sing of the Steadfast Love of the Lord

A Maskil^[a] of ^(A)Ethan the Ezrahite.

¹⁰ “And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ^(A)‘Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ ¹¹ then you shall say to them: ^(B)‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and ^(C)have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, ¹² and because ^(D)you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, ^(E)every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. ¹³ Therefore ^(F)I will hurl you out of this land into ^(G)a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, ^(H)and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

The Lord Will Restore Israel

^14 (I)“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ^(J)‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ ¹⁵ but ^(K)‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel ^(L)out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For ^(M)I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

¹⁶ “Behold, ^(N)I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out ^(O)of the clefts of the rocks. ¹⁷ For ^(P)my eyes are on all their ways. ^(Q)They are not hidden from me, ^(R)nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. ¹⁸ But first ^(S)I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and ^(T)have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

²¹ “Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that ^(Z)my name is the Lord.”

Released from the Law

7 Or do you not know, brothers^[a]—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? ² For ^(A)a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.^{[b] 3} Accordingly, ^(B)she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

⁴ Likewise, my brothers, ^(C)you also have died ^(D)to the law ^(E)through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, ^(F)in order that we may bear fruit for God. ⁵ For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work ^(G)in our members ^(H)to bear fruit for death. ⁶ But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the ^(I)new way of ^(J)the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.^[c]

The Law and Sin

⁷ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, ^(K)I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if ^(L)the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸ But sin, ^(M)seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. ^(N)For apart from the law, sin lies dead. ⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. ¹⁰ The very commandment ^(O)that promised life proved to be death to me. ¹¹ For sin, ^(P)seizing an opportunity through the commandment, ^(Q)deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So ^(R)the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

6 After this ^(A)Jesus went away to the other side of ^(B)the Sea of Galilee, which is ^(C)the Sea of Tiberias. ² And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. ³ Jesus went up on ^(D)the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. ⁴ Now ^(E)the Passover, the ^(F)feast of the Jews, was at hand. ^5 (G)Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to ^(H)Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. ^7 (I)Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii^[a] worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” ⁸ One of his disciples, ^(J)Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five ^(K)barley loaves and two fish, but ^(L)what are they for so many?” ¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” ^(M)Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, and ^(N)when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” ¹³ So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. ¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, ^(O)“This is indeed ^(P)the Prophet ^(Q)who is to come into the world!”

^15 (R)Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus ^(S)withdrew again to ^(T)the mountain by himself.