You Keep Him in Perfect Peace
1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
“We have a strong city;
he sets up salvation
as walls and bulwarks.
2 Open the gates,
that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.
3 You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
4 jTrust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
5 For he has humbled
the inhabitants of the height,
the lofty city.
He klays it low, lays it low to the ground,
casts it to the dust.
6 The foot tramples it,
the feet of the poor,
the steps of the needy.”
7 The path of the righteous is level;
you make level the way of the righteous.
8 In the path of your judgments,
O Lord, we wait for you;
your name and remembrance
are the desire of our soul.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night;
my spirit within me learnestly seeks you.
For when your judgments are in the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
10 If favor is shown to the wicked,
he does not learn righteousness;
in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly
and does not see the majesty of the Lord.
11 O Lord, your hand is lifted up,
but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.
Let the mfire for your adversaries consume them.
12 O Lord, you will ordain peace for us,
for nyou have indeed done for us all our works.
13 O Lord our God,
other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
14 They are dead, they will not live;
they are shades, they will not arise;
to that end you have visited them with destruction
and wiped out all remembrance of them.
15 But oyou have increased the nation, O Lord,
you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
you have enlarged all the borders of the land.
16 O Lord, pin distress they sought you;
they poured out a whispered prayer
when your discipline was upon them.
17 Like a pregnant woman
who writhes and cries out in her pangs
when she is near to giving birth,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
18 we were pregnant, we writhed,
but we have given birth to wind.
We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
19 qYour dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the earth will give birth to the dead.
You Keep Him in Perfect Peace
1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
“We have a strong city;
he sets up salvation
as walls and bulwarks.
You Must Be Born Again
1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 fThis man came to Jesus1 gby night and said to him, “Rabbi, hwe know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these isigns that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is jborn again2 he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born kof water and the Spirit, he cannot lenter the kingdom of God. 6 mThat which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.3 7 nDo not marvel that I said to you, ‘You4 must be born again.’ 8 The wind5 blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? 11 Truly, truly, I say to you, owe speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you6 pdo not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 qNo one has ascended into heaven except he who descended rfrom heaven, sthe Son of Man.7 14 And tas Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be ulifted up, 15 that vwhoever believes in him may have eternal life.8
For God So Loved the World
16 “For God so loved the world,9 wthat he gave his only xSon, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not ysend his Son into the world zto condemn the world, but ain order that the world might be saved through him. 18 bWhoever believes in him is not condemned, but cwhoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed din the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the elight has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the flight and does not come to the light, glest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
John the Baptist Exalts Christ
22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was hbaptizing. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized 24 (for iJohn had not yet been put in prison).
