| “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord God, “rather than that he would turn from his ways and live?” | Do you think that I like to see wicked people die? says the Sovereign Lord. Of course not! I want them to turn from their wicked ways and live. |
| And so the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.” | But the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.” |
| Behold, as for the impudent one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous one will live by his faith. | Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. |
| The Lord opens the eyes of those who are blind; The Lord raises up those who are bowed down; The Lord loves the righteous. | The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down. The Lord loves the godly. |
| Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. | Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. |
| Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. | This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! |
| Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and they will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and flog and crucify, and on the third day He will be raised up. | “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die. Then they will hand him over to the Romans to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised from the dead.” |
| While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. | So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. |
| Open your mouth, judge righteously, And defend the rights of the poor and needy. | Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice. |
| If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. | If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? |
| Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? | Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? |
| Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. | Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. |
| One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord And to meditate in His temple. | The one thing I ask of the Lord— the thing I seek most— is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple. |
| But just as it is written: “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the human heart, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” | That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” |
| But let justice roll out like waters, And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. | Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living. |
| In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. | So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. |
| Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. The Lord is near. | Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. |
| Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. | Arise, Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see. For the glory of the Lord rises to shine on you. |
| But the one who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds will be revealed as having been performed in God. | But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants. |
| And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were watching, and a cloud took Him up, out of their sight. | After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. |
| And Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road. | And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road. |
| For since by a man death came, by a Man also came the resurrection of the dead. | So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. |
| Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the one who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.” | Then Peter replied, “I see very clearly that God shows no favoritism. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.” |
| Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out with his hand, and take fruit also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. | Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!” So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. |
| Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from a trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. | So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. |
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