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.
1 See what kind of hlove the Father has given to us, that we should be called ichildren of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that jit did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that kwhen he appears1 we shall be llike him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared in order to mtake away sins, and nin him there is no sin. 6 oNo one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either pseen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one qdeceive you. rWhoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to sdestroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s2 seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
Love One Another
11 For tthis is the message uthat you have heard from the beginning, that we should vlove one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and wmurdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s xrighteous. 13 Do not be surprised, brothers,3 that the world yhates you. 14 We know that we have zpassed out of death into life, abecause we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 bEveryone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 cBy this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But dif anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide ein him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
19 By this we shall know that we are fof the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and gwhatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and hdo what pleases him. 23 And ithis is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and jlove one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 kWhoever keeps his commandments abides in God,4 and God5 in him. lAnd by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
