Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A song to sing as we climb.

David wrote this song.

¹⁰ Then the prophet Hananiah removed the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah.^[a] He broke it into pieces. ¹¹ He said in front of all the people, ‘The Lord says, “That shows how I will break the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He has put his yoke around the necks of all the nations. In less than two years I will break his yoke and I will remove it from their necks.” ’

After Hananiah said that, the prophet Jeremiah went away from the temple.

¹² Soon after Hananiah had broken the yoke that was on Jeremiah's neck, the Lord spoke again to Jeremiah. ¹³ He said, ‘Go to Hananiah and tell him that the Lord says, “It is true that you have broken a wooden yoke. But instead of that you will get a yoke that is made from iron! ¹⁴ Yes, the Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says this: I have put an iron yoke around the necks of all those nations. They will have to serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon as his slaves. Everything will be under his power, even the wild animals.” ’^[b]

¹⁵ Then Jeremiah said to Hananiah, ‘Listen to me, Hananiah! The Lord has not sent you as his prophet. You have spoken lies to these people and they have believed you. ¹⁶ So the Lord says to you, “I will remove you from this earth. You have taught people to turn against me, the Lord. You will certainly die this year.” ’

¹⁷ In the seventh month of that same year, the prophet Hananiah died.

3 So someone may ask, ‘Does it help a person if they are a Jew, rather than a Gentile? Does it help a person if someone has circumcised them?’ ² Yes, it helps in many ways. The first is that God chose to give his messages to the Jewish people. ³ But you may say, ‘Some Jews did not believe God's messages as they should have done. Because of that, maybe God will not do what he said he would do.’ ⁴ No, certainly it does not mean that! God will always do what he says. He will always say what is true, even if everyone in the world should tell lies. This is what is written in the Bible:

⁵ Maybe some people may say, ‘The wrong things that we do show more clearly that God is always right. So perhaps God is wrong to punish us.’ ⁶ That is not true! God always decides what is right and fair. That is why he is able to judge everyone in the world.

⁷ Someone might also say, ‘When I tell lies, that shows how great and good God is. My lies show more clearly that God always says what is true. So God should not say that I am a bad person. He should not punish me.’ ⁸ But if that is true, you could also say, ‘We should do more and more bad things. Then something good will happen as a result.’ Some people even say that is the message which I teach. But if they say that, they are insulting me. It is right that God should punish those people.