Psalm 85

For the music leader. Of the Korahites. A psalm.

²¹ speak to them, This is what the Lord God says: I will take the Israelites from among the nations where they’ve gone, I will gather them from all around, and I will bring them to their fertile land. ²² I will make them into a single nation in the land on Israel’s highlands. There will be just one king for all of them. They will no longer be two nations, and they will no longer be divided into two kingdoms. ²³ They will no longer defile themselves with their idols or their worthless things or with any of their rebellions. I will deliver them from all the places where they sinned, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. ²⁴ My servant David will be king over them. There will be just one shepherd for all of them. They will follow my case laws and carefully observe my regulations. ²⁵ They will live on the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where their ancestors lived. They will live on it, they and their children and their grandchildren, forever. My servant David will be their prince forever. ²⁶ I will make a covenant of peace for them. It will be their covenant forever. I will grant it to them and allow them to increase. I will set my sanctuary among them forever. ²⁷ My dwelling will be with them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. ²⁸ The nations will know that I, the Lord, make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.

⁴⁵ Therefore, many of the Jews who came with Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. ⁴⁶ But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

Caiaphas prophesies

⁴⁷ Then the chief priests and Pharisees called together the council^[a] and said, “What are we going to do? This man is doing many miraculous signs! ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our people.”

⁴⁹ One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, told them, “You don’t know anything! ⁵⁰ You don’t see that it is better for you that one man die for the people rather than the whole nation be destroyed.” ⁵¹ He didn’t say this on his own. As high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would soon die for the nation— ⁵² and not only for the nation. Jesus would also die so that God’s children scattered everywhere would be gathered together as one. ⁵³ From that day on they plotted to kill him.