Don’t panic! Don’t be afraid! ¹  Did I not tell you beforehand and decree it? You are my witnesses! Is there any God but me? There is no other sheltering rock; ²  I know of none.

“Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem: ¹  ‘This is what the Lord says: “I have fond memories of you, ²  how devoted you were to me in your early years. ³  I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted.

The Lord says, ¹  “Listen, ²  nation of Israel! ³  I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you. It will be a nation that was founded long ago and has lasted for a long time. It will be a nation whose language you will not know. Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand.

“The Lord God of Israel has a message for you. ¹  ‘I made a covenant with your ancestors ²  when I brought them out of Egypt where they had been slaves. ³  It stipulated, ⁴ 

And with all your abominable practices and prostitution you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, kicking around in your blood.

It is sharpened for slaughter, it is polished to flash like lightning! “‘Should we rejoice in the scepter of my son? No! The sword despises every tree! ¹ 

I will restore the fortunes of Egypt, and will bring them back ¹  to the land of Pathros, to the land of their origin; there they will be an insignificant kingdom.

(5:1) As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, ¹  seemingly insignificant ²  among the clans of Judah – from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, ³  one whose origins ⁴  are in the distant past. ⁵ 

Should you not have obeyed the words that the Lord cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem ¹  was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah ²  were also populated?

The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had never been born.”

For the Son of Man will go as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had never been born.”

But we had hoped ¹  that he was the one who was going to redeem ²  Israel. Not only this, but it is now the third day since these things happened.

Which of the prophets did your ancestors ¹  not persecute? ²  They ³  killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, ⁴  whose betrayers and murderers you have now become! ⁵ 

Some of you once lived this way. ¹  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ²  and by the Spirit of our God.

And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel to Abraham ahead of time, ¹  saying, “All the nations ²  will be blessed in you.” ³ 

But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which ¹  the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

And when ¹  you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) – when you believed in Christ ²  – you were marked with the seal ³  of the promised Holy Spirit, ⁴ 

He is the one who saved us ¹  and called us with a holy calling, not based on ²  our works but on his own purpose and grace, granted to us in Christ Jesus before time began, ³ 

For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another.

For though you should in fact be teachers by this time, ¹  you need someone to teach you the beginning elements of God’s utterances. ²  You have gone back to needing ³  milk, not ⁴  solid food.