those who bear false testimony against a person, ¹  who entrap the one who arbitrates at the city gate ²  and deprive the innocent of justice by making false charges. ³ 

“I, the Lord, officially commission you; ¹  I take hold of your hand. I protect you ²  and make you a covenant mediator for people, ³  and a light ⁴  to the nations, ⁵ 

It is me – I stir him up and commission him; ¹  I will make all his ways level. He will rebuild my city; he will send my exiled people home, but not for a price or a bribe,” says the Lord who commands armies.

You must be truthful, honest and upright when you take an oath saying, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’ ¹  If you do, ²  the nations will pray to be as blessed by him as you are and will make him the object of their boasting.” ³ 

I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ¹  They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ²  They do not know what their God requires of them. ³ 

I will go to the leaders ¹  and speak with them. Surely they know what the Lord demands. ²  Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ³  Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority and refuse to submit to him. ⁴ 

My eye will not pity you; I will not spare ¹  you. ²  For I will hold you responsible for your behavior, ³  and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. ⁴  Then you will know that I am the Lord!

“But if the wicked person turns from all the sin he has committed and observes all my statutes and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.

Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap unfailing love. Break up the unplowed ground for yourselves, for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers deliverance ¹  on you.

Can horses run on rocky cliffs? Can one plow the sea with oxen? ¹  Yet you have turned justice into a poisonous plant, and the fruit of righteous actions into a bitter plant. ² 

I must endure ¹  the Lord’s anger, for I have sinned against him. But then ²  he will defend my cause, ³  and accomplish justice on my behalf. He will lead me out into the light; I will experience firsthand ⁴  his deliverance. ⁵ 

And I will bring them to settle within Jerusalem. They will be my people, and I will be their God, ¹  in truth and righteousness.’

He taught what was true; ¹  sinful words were not found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and integrity, and he turned many people away from sin.

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Is this blessedness ¹  then for ²  the circumcision ³  or also for ⁴  the uncircumcision? For we say, “faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.” 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.

But if while seeking to be justified in Christ we ourselves have also been found to be sinners, is Christ then one who encourages ¹  sin? Absolutely not!

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 

And we all agree, ¹  our religion contains amazing revelation: ²  He ³  was revealed in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, ⁴  seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit,