Jeremiah 16:10–21; Romans 7:1–12; John 6:1–15

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Jeremiah 16:10–21

10 And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, tWhy has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? 11 then you shall say to them: uBecause your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and vhave gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law, 12 and because wyou have done worse than your fathers, for behold, xevery one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. 13 Therefore yI will hurl you out of this land into za land that neither you nor your fathers have known, aand there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.

The Lord Will Restore Israel

14 bTherefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, cAs the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, 15 but cAs the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel dout of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them. For eI will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

16 Behold, fI am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out gof the clefts of the rocks. 17 For hmy eyes are on all their ways. iThey are not hidden from me, inor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. 18 But first jI will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and khave filled my inheritance with their abominations.

19  lO Lord, my strength and my stronghold,

mmy refuge in the day of trouble,

nto you shall the nations come

from the ends of the earth and say:

Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,

oworthless things in which there is no profit.

20  Can man make for himself pgods?

Such are not gods!

21 Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that qmy name is the Lord.


Romans 7:1–12

Released from the Law

Or do you not know, brothers1for I am speaking to those who know the lawthat the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For ea married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.2 Accordingly, fshe will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

Likewise, my brothers, gyou also have died hto the law ithrough the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, jin order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work kin our members lto bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the mnew way of nthe Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.3

The Law and Sin

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, oI would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if pthe law had not said, You shall not covet. But sin, qseizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. rFor apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment sthat promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, tseizing an opportunity through the commandment, udeceived me and through it killed me. 12 So vthe law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.


John 6:1–15

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

After this jJesus went away to the other side of kthe Sea of Galilee, which is lthe Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on mthe mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now nthe Passover, the ofeast of the Jews, was at hand. pLifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to qPhilip, Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat? He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. rPhilip answered him, Two hundred denarii1 worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little. One of his disciples, sAndrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, There is a boy here who has five tbarley loaves and two fish, but twhat are they for so many? 10 Jesus said, Have the people sit down. uNow there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and vwhen he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost. 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, wThis is indeed xthe Prophet ywho is to come into the world!

15 zPerceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus awithdrew again to bthe mountain by himself.