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Psalm 46

1  God is our refuge and strength, ♦︎
   a very present help in trouble;
2  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, ♦︎
   and though the mountains tremble in the heart of the sea;
3  Though the waters rage and swell, ♦︎
   and though the mountains quake at the towering seas.
4  There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, ♦︎
   the holy place of the dwelling of the Most High.
5  God is in the midst of her;
      therefore shall she not be removed; ♦︎
   God shall help her at the break of day.
6  The nations are in uproar and the kingdoms are shaken, ♦︎
   but God utters his voice and the earth shall melt away.
7  The Lord of hosts is with us; ♦︎
   the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
8  Come and behold the works of the Lord, ♦︎
   what destruction he has wrought upon the earth.
9  He makes wars to cease in all the world; ♦︎
   he shatters the bow and snaps the spear
      and burns the chariots in the fire.
10  ‘Be still, and know that I am God; ♦︎
   I will be exalted among the nations;
      I will be exalted in the earth.’
11  The Lord of hosts is with us; ♦︎
   the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Reign of Zedekiah

11 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹²He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before the prophet Jeremiah who spoke from the mouth of the Lord. ¹³He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁴All the leading priests and the people also were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of the Lord that he had consecrated in Jerusalem.

The Fall of Jerusalem

15 The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling-place; ¹⁶but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy.

17 Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their youths with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or young woman, the aged or the feeble; he gave them all into his hand. ¹⁸All the vessels of the house of God, large and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his officials, all these he brought to Babylon. ¹⁹They burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels. ²⁰He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, ²¹to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had made up for its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfil seventy years.

Cyrus Proclaims Liberty for the Exiles

22 In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in fulfilment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom and also declared in a written edict: ²³‘Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him! Let him go up.’

God’s Love in Christ Jesus

31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.^{* 35}Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
   we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.