Old/New Testament

Jerusalem’s Hope

3 I am the man who has been suffering because of the power of God’s anger. ² He has led me and brought me into darkness and not into light. ³ For sure He has turned His hand against me again and again all day long. ⁴ He has made my flesh and my skin waste away. He has broken my bones. ⁵ He has shut me in with trouble and suffering. ⁶ He has made me live in dark places, like those who have been dead a long time. ⁷ He has put a wall around me so that I cannot go out. He has put heavy chains on me. ⁸ Even when I cry and call for help, he shuts out my prayer. ⁹ He has stopped me with blocks of stone. He has made my paths no longer straight. ¹⁰ He is like a bear lying in wait, like a lion hiding in secret places. ¹¹ He has turned me from the path and torn me to pieces. He has destroyed me. ¹² He used His bow, and set me as a mark for His arrow. ¹³ He has taken out His arrows and sent them into my heart. ¹⁴ All my people laugh at me. They sing songs that make fun of me all day long. ¹⁵ He has filled me with bitter feelings. He has made me drunk with wormwood. ¹⁶ He has broken my teeth with rocks, and has covered me with dust. ¹⁷ Peace has left my soul. I have forgotten what it is like to be happy. ¹⁸ So I say, “My strength is gone, and so has my hope from the Lord.”

¹⁹ Remember my trouble and my traveling from place to place, the wormwood and bitter feelings. ²⁰ I remember it always, and my soul bows down within me. ²¹ But this I remember, and so I have hope. ²² It is because of the Lord’s loving-kindness that we are not destroyed for His loving-pity never ends. ²³ It is new every morning. He is so very faithful. ²⁴ “The Lord is my share.” says my soul, “so I have hope in Him.” ²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the one who looks for Him. ²⁶ It is good that one should be quiet and wait for the saving power of the Lord. ²⁷ It is good for a man to carry the load while he is young. ²⁸ Let him sit alone and be quiet when God has laid the load on him. ²⁹ Let him put his mouth in the dust. There may be hope yet. ³⁰ Let him give his face to the one who hits him, and be filled with shame. ³¹ For the Lord will not turn away from a man forever. ³² For if He causes sorrow, He will have loving-pity because of His great loving-kindness. ³³ He does not want to cause trouble or sorrow for the children of men. ³⁴ He is not pleased when all those on earth who are in prison are crushed under foot. ³⁵ The Most High is not pleased when the rights are kept away from a man who is before Him, ³⁶ and when wrong is done to him in his cause. The Lord is not pleased with these things. ³⁷ Who has said that something would happen and then it did happen, unless the Lord has said that it should be? ³⁸ Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and bad come?

³⁹ Why should any living man complain about the punishment of his sins? ⁴⁰ Let us test and look over our ways, and return to the Lord. ⁴¹ Let us lift up our heart and hands to God in heaven, saying, ⁴² “We have sinned and would not obey You, and You have not forgiven us. ⁴³ You have covered Yourself with anger and have followed us, killing without pity. ⁴⁴ You have covered Yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through. ⁴⁵ You have made us a waste and something that is not wanted among the nations. ⁴⁶ All those who hate us have spoken against us. ⁴⁷ Fear and a trap have come upon us. We are laid waste and destroyed. ⁴⁸ My eyes flow with rivers of tears because my people are destroyed. ⁴⁹ Tears flow from my eyes all the time without stopping, ⁵⁰ until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees. ⁵¹ My eyes bring me suffering because of what is happening to all the women of my city. ⁵² I have been hunted like a bird by those who hate me for no reason. ⁵³ They threw me alive into the deep hole and have put a stone on me. ⁵⁴ Water flowed over my head, and I said, “I am cut off!” ⁵⁵ I called on Your name, O Lord, out of the deep hole. ⁵⁶ You have heard my voice. Do not close Your ears to my cry for help. ⁵⁷ You came near when I called You, and You said, “Do not be afraid!” ⁵⁸ You have helped me in my cause, O Lord. You have saved my life. ⁵⁹ O Lord, You have seen the wrong done to me. Judge in my favor. ⁶⁰ You have seen how much they hate me and plan against me. ⁶¹ O Lord, You have heard how they put me to shame and how they work against me. ⁶² The lips and thoughts of those who hurt me are against me all day long. ⁶³ Watch their sitting down and standing up. I am their song as they make fun of me. ⁶⁴ O Lord, You will punish them for what they have done. ⁶⁵ You will give them hard hearts, and curse them. ⁶⁶ Go after them in anger and destroy them from under Your heavens, O Lord.

Jerusalem’s Sinful Leaders

4 How dark the gold has become! How the pure gold has changed! The stones from the house of God are poured out at the corner of every street. ² The sons of Zion are worth their weight in fine gold. But they are thought of as clay pots, the work of a pot-maker’s hands! ³ Even wild dogs give their breast to feed their young, but my people show no pity. They are like ostriches in the desert. ⁴ The baby’s tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth because of thirst. The children beg for bread, but no one gives it to them. ⁵ Those who ate fine foods are dying in the streets. Those who were brought up dressed in purple now lie in ashes. ⁶ For the sin of the daughter of my people is worse than the sin of Sodom, which was destroyed all at once without a hand turned to help her. ⁷ Her religious leaders were more pure than snow. They were more white than milk. Their bodies were more red than coral. They were more beautiful than sapphire. ⁸ Now they look more black than dark ashes. No one knows who they are in the streets. Their skin has dried up on their bones. It has become as dry as wood. ⁹ Those who are killed with the sword are better off than those killed with hunger. For they waste away, suffering because they have no fruits of the field. ¹⁰ Women who had shown loving-kindness have boiled their own children for food, because my people are destroyed. ¹¹ The Lord has acted in His anger. He has poured out His burning anger, and has set a fire in Zion which has burned it to the ground. ¹² The kings of the earth and all the people of the world did not believe that those who hated them could come into the gates of Jerusalem. ¹³ This was because of the sins of her men who spoke in God’s name, and the sins of her religious leaders, who killed those within her who were right and good. ¹⁴ They walked as blind men through the streets. They were made unclean with blood so that no one could touch their clothing. ¹⁵ People cried to them, “Go away! You are unclean! Leave! Go away! Do not touch!” So they ran away and traveled from place to place. Men among the nations said, “They must not stay with us any longer.” ¹⁶ The Lord Himself has sent them everywhere. He will not care about them any more. They did not honor the religious leaders or favor the leaders of the people. ¹⁷ Our eyes have become weak in looking for help that did not come. In our watching we have waited for a nation that was not able to save us. ¹⁸ They kept following after our steps so that we could not walk in our streets. Our end came near. Our days were finished, for our end had come. ¹⁹ Those who came after us were faster than the eagles of the sky. They came after us on the mountains. They hid and waited for us in the desert. ²⁰ The Lord’s chosen one, our very breath, was caught in their traps. We had said about him, “Under his shadow we will live among the nations.” ²¹ Be filled with joy and be glad, O people of Edom, who live in the land of Uz. But the cup will be passed to you also. You will become drunk and your shame will be seen. ²² The punishment of your sin is completed, O people of Zion. The Lord will not keep you away any longer. But He will punish your sin, Edom. He will let your sins be seen!

Jerusalem’s Prayer for God’s Loving-Kindness

5 O Lord, remember what has happened to us. Look, and see our shame! ² The land we received from You has been given over to strangers. Our homes have been given to people from other lands. ³ We have lost our fathers. Our mothers are like those who have lost their husbands. ⁴ We have to pay for our drinking water, and we must buy our wood. ⁵ Those who come after us are at our necks. We are tired and cannot rest. ⁶ We have put out our hands to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread. ⁷ Our fathers sinned, and are no more, and we have suffered for their sins. ⁸ Servants rule over us. There is no one to save us from their hand. ⁹ We put our lives in danger to get our bread, because of the sword in the desert. ¹⁰ Our skin has become as hot as fire because of the burning heat of hunger. ¹¹ They have taken and sinned against the women in Zion, and the young women who have never had a man in the cities of Judah. ¹² Rulers were hung by their hands. Leaders were not respected. ¹³ Young men worked to grind the grain, and boys fell under loads of wood. ¹⁴ The old men have left the city gate. Young men have stopped playing their music. ¹⁵ The joy of our hearts has come to an end. Our dancing has been turned into sorrow. ¹⁶ The crown has fallen from our head. It is bad for us, for we have sinned! ¹⁷ Because of this our heart is weak. Because of these things our eyes are weak. ¹⁸ Mount Zion lies in waste, so foxes run all over it.

¹⁹ O Lord, You rule forever. Your throne will last for all people-to-come. ²⁰ Why do You forget us forever? Why do You leave us alone for so long? ²¹ Return us to You, O Lord. Bring us back. Make our days as they were before. ²² Or have You turned away from us forever? Is there no end to Your anger?

We Can Go to God Through Christ

¹⁹ Christian brothers, now we know we can go into the Holiest Place of All because the blood of Jesus was given. ²⁰ We now come to God by the new and living way. Christ made this way for us. He opened the curtain, which was His own body. ²¹ We have a great Religious Leader over the house of God. ²² And so let us come near to God with a true heart full of faith. Our hearts must be made clean from guilty feelings and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold on to the hope we say we have and not be changed. We can trust God that He will do what He promised. ²⁴ Let us help each other to love others and to do good. ²⁵ Let us not stay away from church meetings. Some people are doing this all the time. Comfort each other as you see the day of His return coming near.

Do Not Fall Back Into Sin

²⁶ If we keep on sinning because we want to after we have received and know the truth, there is no gift that will take away sins then. ²⁷ Instead, we will stand before God and on that day He will judge us. And the hot fires of hell will burn up those who work against God. ²⁸ Anyone who did not obey the Old Way of Worship died without loving-kindness when two or three men spoke against him. ²⁹ How much more will a man have to be punished if he walks on and hates the Son of God? How much more will he be punished if he acts as if the blood of God’s New Way of Worship is worth nothing? This New Way of Worship is God’s way of making him holy. How much more will he be punished if he laughs at the Holy Spirit Who wanted to show him loving-favor? ³⁰ For we know God said, “I will pay back what is coming to them.” And, “The Lord will judge His people.” ^{(A) 31} The very worst thing that can happen to a man is to fall into the hands of the living God!

³² Remember how it was in those days after you heard the truth. You suffered much. ³³ People laughed at you and beat you. When others suffered, you suffered with them. ³⁴ You had loving-pity for those who were in prison. You had joy when your things were taken away from you. For you knew you would have something better in heaven which would last forever.

³⁵ Do not throw away your trust, for your reward will be great. ³⁶ You must be willing to wait without giving up. After you have done what God wants you to do, God will give you what He promised you. ³⁷ The Holy Writings say, “In a little while, the One you are looking for will come. It will not be a long time now. ³⁸ For the one right with God lives by faith. If anyone turns back, I will not be pleased with him.” ^{(B) 39} We are not of those people who turn back and are lost. Instead, we have faith to be saved from the punishment of sin.