Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
The 5th Hallelujah Psalm[a]
150 Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his temple.
Praise him high in the sky,
where he shows his great strength.
2 Praise God for the great things that he has done.
Praise him because he is great and powerful.
3 Praise him with music!
Yes! Use trumpets, harps and lyres
to praise God![b]
4 Dance and hit drums to praise him!
Make music with harps and flutes
to praise him!
5 Make music with big cymbals and small cymbals
to praise him!
6 Everything that is alive should praise the Lord.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
The Lord makes promises to his people
30 The Lord gave this message to Jeremiah: 2 ‘The Lord, Israel's God, says, “Write all the words that I have spoken in a book.” 3 I, the Lord, tell you this: “The time will come when I will bring back my people from foreign lands. I will bring the people of Israel and Judah back to the land that I gave to their ancestors. It will belong to them.” That is what the Lord says.’
4 The Lord spoke this message about Israel and Judah:
5 The Lord said,
‘People are shouting because they are afraid!
Listen to them!
There is no peace anywhere.
6 Think carefully about this.
Do men ever give birth to babies?
So why are these strong men weak with pain?
They seem like a woman who is giving birth.
All their faces have become white with fear.
7 It will be a time of terrible trouble,
worse than anything that has happened before.
It will be a time of great trouble for Jacob's descendants.[a]
But I will rescue them from their trouble.’
8 The Lord Almighty says this:
‘When that day comes,
I will break the yoke that is around your necks.[b]
I will remove the ropes that tie your legs.
My people will no longer be slaves
under the power of foreign people.
9 Instead, they will serve the Lord their God.
They will serve David's descendant.
I will raise that man up to be their king.’
10 The Lord says,
‘Do not be afraid, descendants of Jacob, my servants.
People of Israel, do not be upset.
I will rescue you and your descendants from your enemies.
I will bring you back from the land far away,
where you are prisoners.
Jacob's descendants will return to their own land.
They will live there safely in peace.
There will be no enemies to make them afraid.’
11 The Lord says,
‘I am with you and I will save you.
I have sent you away to live in foreign lands.
That was the punishment that you deserved.
I will completely destroy the nations where I sent you to live.
But I will not completely destroy you.
I will certainly punish you,
but only as much as you deserve.’
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.
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