Old/New Testament

The river from the temple

47 The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple. There I saw water that was pouring out from under the entrance. It was pouring towards the east. (The front entrance of the temple opened towards the east.) The river of water came from under the south side of the temple. It went past the south side of the altar. ² The man took me out through the north gate of the temple. We went around the outside to the gate that opens towards the east. There I saw a small stream of water. It was coming out from the south side of the gate.

³ The man went towards the east. He measured 500 metres in that direction. He took me through the water there. The water was as high as my ankles. ⁴ Then he measured another 500 metres along the stream. He took me through the water again. Here, the water was as high as my knees. He measured another 500 metres. He took me through the water and it was now as high as my belt. ⁵ Then he measured another 500 metres. Here the water had become a deep river. It was too deep for me to go across. Nobody could walk through it. They would need to swim.

⁶ The man said to me, ‘Son of man, you must remember what you have seen.’

Then he took me back to the river's edge. ⁷ When I got there, I saw very many trees. They were on each side of the river. ⁸ He said to me, ‘This river of water goes towards the land in the east. It goes into the valley of the Jordan River. Then the water goes into the Salt Sea. When it goes into the sea there, the water becomes pure instead of salty.^{[a] 9} Wherever the river goes, many kinds of animals and fish will live. There will be lots of fish in the Salt Sea because the water that goes in there will make it pure. There will be many living things in places where the river goes. ¹⁰ Men will stand on the edge of the sea to catch fish. They will use their nets to catch fish, all the way from En-Gedi to En-Eglaim. They will catch many kinds of fish, like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. ¹¹ But the water in the pools and the wet places around the Salt Sea will not become pure. There will still be salt for people there. ¹² All kinds of fruit trees will live on each side of the river. Their leaves will never become dry. They will always give fruit every month. This is because the water that feeds them comes from the holy temple. The fruit from these trees will provide food. And their leaves will make sick people well.’

The borders of Israel's land

¹³ This is what the Almighty Lord says: ‘This is the land that you will share among Israel's 12 tribes. Give one part to each tribe, but Joseph's descendants will have two parts.^{[b] 14} Share the land in equal parts for each tribe. I promised your ancestors that I would give them this land to live in. So now it will belong to you and your descendants.

¹⁵ These will be the borders of your land:

The north border goes from the Mediterranean Sea to the city of Hethlon. It continues to go east, past Lebo-Hamath and to Zedad. ¹⁶ From there, it continues through Berothah and Sibraim. Those towns are on the border between Damascus and Hamath. Then it goes as far as Hazer-Hattikon, which is on the border of Hauran. ¹⁷ The border goes from the Mediterranean Sea to Hazar-Enan. The border of Hamath is on the north side and the border of Damascus is on the south side. That is the north border of your land.

¹⁸ On the east side, the border of your land is the Jordan River. It starts between Hauran and Damascus. It goes between the region of Gilead and Israel's land, past the Salt Sea as far as Tamar. That is the east border.

¹⁹ On the south side, the border goes from Tamar to the springs of water near Meribath Kadesh. Then it goes along the Stream at Egypt's border to the Mediterranean Sea. That is the south border.

²⁰ On the west side, the Mediterranean Sea is the border of your land. It goes north to a place on the west side of Lebo-Hamath. That is the north border of your land.

²¹ You must share this land among yourselves so that each tribe of Israel receives a part. ²² Each part that you receive will belong to you and to the foreigners who live among you. Those foreigners have given birth to their own children among you. Accept them as if they were born as Israelites. They must receive land for themselves among Israel's tribes. ²³ Give them land among the tribe where they have decided to live.’

That is what the Almighty Lord says.

Each tribe gets its part of the land

48 ‘This is the list of Israel's tribes, with the land that each tribe will receive:

Dan will receive land at the north border of Israel. Their north border goes east from the Mediterranean Sea along the road to Hethlon, as far as Lebo-Hamath. From there, it goes to Hazar-Enan, on the border between Damascus and Hamath.

⁸ South of Judah's land will be a special part of the land, with the temple in the middle of it. From east to west, it will be the same size as the parts of the land for Israel's tribes. From north to south, it will be 12½ kilometres.

⁹ The part that belongs to the Lord for his temple will be 12½ kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide. ¹⁰ The priests will have a part of this holy land. Their part will measure 12½ kilometres from east to west. It will measure 5 kilometres from north to south. The Lord's temple will be in the middle of this part. ¹¹ This holy part of the land will belong to the priests who are descendants of Zadok. They are the priests who served me faithfully. They did not turn away from me as the other Levites did when Israel's people did not obey me. ¹² So the priests will have that special part of the land, next to the part for the Levites. The priests' part will be the most holy part of the land.

¹³ The Levites will also have a special part, south of the part for the priests. It will be the same size. It will measure 12½ kilometres from east to west, and 5 kilometres from north to south. So the land for the priests and for the Levites will be 12½ kilometres from east to west and 10 kilometres from north to south. ¹⁴ The special part of the land that belongs to the Lord is the best of the whole land. You must not give his land to anyone else or sell it to anyone else. It is holy and it belongs to the Lord.

¹⁵ The other part of the special land is 12½ kilometres from east to west and 2½ kilometres from north to south. That part is not holy. Ordinary people may use it. They may live there and use the fields. There will be a city in the middle of it. ¹⁶ The city will be square, 2,250 metres long on each side. ¹⁷ You must leave an open space 125 metres wide on each side of the city. ¹⁸ There will be two other pieces of land south of the special holy land. There will be a piece 2.5 kilometres wide on the east side of the city and a piece 2.5 kilometres wide on the west side. People who live in the city may use these pieces of land to grow crops. ¹⁹ There will be people from the different tribes of Israel who live in the city. Any of them may use the land to grow things.

²⁰ The whole of the special land, including the holy part and the part for the city, will be a square. Each side will be 12½ kilometres.

²¹ The parts of land on each side of the square will belong to the ruler. The part on the east side will go as far as Israel's border in the east. The part on the west side will go as far as the Mediterranean Sea. The holy part of land where the temple is will be in the middle, between them. ²² The land that belongs to the Levites and the priests, as well as the city, will be between the two parts of land that belong to the ruler. The land for Judah will be on the north side of these lands. The land for Benjamin's will be on the south side.

²³ The other tribes will each have a part of the land that is south of this special part. The land for each of these tribes will go all the way from Israel's border in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

²⁸ The border on the south side of Gad's land goes from Tamar to the springs of water near Meribath Kadesh. From there, it goes along the stream at Egypt's border to the Mediterranean Sea.

²⁹ That is how you must share the land among Israel's tribes. Each part will belong to one tribe and their descendants. I, the Almighty Lord, say this.

The gates of the city

³⁰ These will be the entrance gates on each side of the city. The wall on the north side of the city will be 2,250 metres long. ³¹ There will be three gates on that side. Each gate will have the name of one of Israel's tribes, one for Reuben, the next for Judah, and the next for Levi. ³² The wall on the east side will also be 2,250 metres long. The three gates on that side will be for Joseph, for Benjamin and for Dan. ³³ The wall on the south side will also be 2,250 metres long. The three gates on that side will be for Simeon, for Issachar and for Zebulun. ³⁴ The wall on the west side will also be 2,250 metres long. The three gates on that side will be for Gad, for Asher and for Naphtali. ³⁵ So the walls all around the city will measure 9,000 metres.

From that time on, the name of the city will be, “The Lord is there.” ’

We are God's children

3 Think about how much God the Father loves us. He calls us his children! God loves us so much that we really have become his children. The people who belong to this world do not understand who God is. Because of that, they do not understand who we are. ² My friends, we are already children of God. We do not yet know clearly what we will become. But we do know this: when Christ returns to this world, we will become like him. We will be like him because we will see him as he really is. ³ Christ is completely good. So all of us who hope to see him then must keep ourselves clean from sin.

⁴ If a person continues to do wrong things, he is choosing not to obey God's rules. Sin is when we do not obey God's rules. ⁵ You know that Jesus came into the world so that he might take away our sins. He himself is completely clean from sin. ⁶ Anyone who lives together with Christ does not continue to do wrong things. If anyone continues to do wrong things, that person has not understood who Christ is. He does not know Christ.

⁷ My little children, do not let anyone deceive you about sin. It is people who live in a good way that God accepts as right. In the same way, Jesus did only what is good and right. ⁸ People who continue to do wrong things show that they belong to the Devil. The Devil has always been doing wrong things from the beginning. This is why the Son of God came to the world. He came to destroy everything that the Devil has done.

⁹ Everybody who is a child of God does not continue to do wrong things. This is because God has given them a new life. He has caused them to become his children. So they cannot continue to do wrong things. ¹⁰ In this way, we can see clearly who are God's children and who are the Devil's children. Anyone who does not live in a way that is good and right does not belong to God. People like that do not love other believers.

Christians must love one another

¹¹ Yes, we must love one another. That is the message which you have heard from the beginning. ¹² We should not be like Cain. He belonged to Satan and he even killed his brother, Abel. Why did he do that? Cain did bad things and he killed Abel because Abel did things that were right.

¹³ So, my Christian friends, do not be surprised when people who belong to this world hate you.

¹⁴ We know that we now have new life with God. Death no longer has power over us. We know this because we love our Christian friends. But anyone who does not love other believers is still under the power of death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates other believers is like someone who murders other people. You know that a person like that does not have true life with God.

¹⁶ This is how we know what true love is: Jesus Christ gave his own life on the cross. He died on our behalf. So we too ought to give our lives for other believers. ¹⁷ When another believer has trouble, we need to be kind to him. Maybe you have all the things that you need to live. If you see another believer who needs things like that, you should help him. If you refuse to be kind to him, it shows that you do not belong to God. You do not love people in the way that God loves them.^[a]

¹⁸ My little children, we should not show love for each other only by what we say. We should also show true love by the things that we do. ¹⁹ Then we will know that we truly belong to God. We will be obeying God's true message. As a result, our thoughts will not make us ashamed to come to God. ²⁰ Even if our thoughts tell us that we have done something wrong, we still will not be afraid of God. We can trust God more than we trust our thoughts. He already knows everything about us.

²¹ My friends, if our thoughts do not tell us that we are guilty, we will not be afraid to come to God. ²² We can pray to God and we can ask him to help us. He will give us what we ask him for. That is because we obey his commands and we do the things that please him. ²³ This is God's command to us: we must believe that Jesus Christ is his Son. And we must love each other, as Jesus commanded us. ²⁴ Anyone who obeys God's commands lives together with God. God also lives in him. How do we know that God lives in us? It is because of his Holy Spirit that he has given to us.