Jeremiah 51511 Yahweh says: “Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. 2 I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around. 3 Against him who bends, let the archer bend his bow, also against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail. Don’t spare her young men! Utterly destroy all her army! 4 They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets. 5 For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God, by Yahweh of Armies; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. 6 “Flee out of the middle of Babylon! Everyone save his own life! Don’t be cut off in her iniquity; for it is the time of Yahweh’s vengeance. He will render to her a recompense. 7 Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh’s hand, who made all the earth drunk. The nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations have gone mad. 8 Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed! Wail for her! Take balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed. 9 “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let’s each go into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. 10 ‘Yahweh has produced our righteousness: come, and let’s declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.’ 11 “Make the arrows sharp! Hold the shields firmly! Yahweh has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple. 12 Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon! Make the watch strong! Set the watchmen, and prepare the ambushes; for Yahweh has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. 13 You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness. 14 Yahweh of Armies has sworn by himself, saying, ‘Surely I will fill you with men, as with the canker worm; and they will lift up a shout against you.’ 15 “He has made the earth by his power. He has established the world by his wisdom. By his understanding he has stretched out the heavens. 16 When he utters his voice, there is a roar of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and brings the wind out of his treasuries. 17 “Every man has become brutish without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. 18 They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation, they will perish. 19 The portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the former of all things; including the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his name. 20 “You are my battle ax and weapons of war. With you I will break the nations into pieces. With you I will destroy kingdoms. 21 With you I will break in pieces the horse and his rider. 22 With you I will break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein. With you I will break in pieces man and woman. With you I will break in pieces the old man and the youth. With you I will break in pieces the young man and the virgin. 23 With you I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock. With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke. With you I will break in pieces governors and deputies. 24 “I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight,” says Yahweh. 25 “Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain,” says Yahweh, “which destroys all the earth. I will stretch out my hand on you, roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burned mountain. 26 They won’t take a cornerstone from you, nor a stone for foundations; but you will be desolate forever,” says Yahweh. 27 “Set up a standard in the land! Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations against her! Call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz! Appoint a marshal against her! Cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm! 28 Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, its governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of their dominion! 29 The land trembles and is in pain; for the purposes of Yahweh against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant. 30 The mighty men of Babylon have stopped fighting, they remain in their strongholds. Their might has failed. They have become as women. Her dwelling places are set on fire. Her bars are broken. 31 One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter. 32 So the passages are seized. They have burned the reeds with fire. The men of war are frightened.” 33 For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden. Yet a little while, and the time of harvest comes for her.” 34 “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out. 35 May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say. 36 Therefore Yahweh says: “Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. 37 Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. 38 They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs. 39 When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says Yahweh. 40 “I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats. 41 “How Sheshach is taken! How the praise of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! 42 The sea has come up on Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves. 43 Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells. No son of man passes by it. 44 I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. The nations will not flow any more to him. Yes, the wall of Babylon will fall. 45 “My people, go away from the middle of her, and each of you save yourselves from Yahweh’s fierce anger. 46 Don’t let your heart faint. Don’t fear for the news that will be heard in the land. For news will come one year, and after that in another year news will come, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. 47 Therefore behold, the days come that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land will be confounded. All her slain will fall in the middle of her. 48 Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, will sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers will come to her from the north,” says Yahweh. 49 “As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so the slain of all the land will fall at Babylon. 50 You who have escaped the sword, go! Don’t stand still! Remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.” 51 “We are confounded, because we have heard reproach. Confusion has covered our faces, for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of Yahweh’s house.” 52 “Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will execute judgment on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded will groan. 53 Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet destroyers will come to her from me,” says Yahweh. 54 “The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! 55 For Yahweh lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice! Their waves roar like many waters. The noise of their voice is uttered. 56 For the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon. Her mighty men are taken. Their bows are broken in pieces, for Yahweh is a God of retribution. He will surely repay. 57 I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies. 58 Yahweh of Armies says: “The wide walls of Babylon will be utterly overthrown. Her high gates will be burned with fire. The peoples will labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they will be weary.” 59 The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was chief quartermaster. 60 Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon. 61 Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words, 62 and say, ‘Yahweh, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that no one will dwell in it, neither man nor animal, but that it will be desolate forever.’ 63 It will be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the middle of the Euphrates. 64 Then you shall say, ‘Thus will Babylon sink, and will not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they will be weary.’ ” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
Song of Solomon 5:1-851 I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, friends! Drink, yes, drink abundantly, beloved. 2 I was asleep, but my heart was awake. It is the voice of my beloved who knocks: “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, and my hair with the dampness of the night.” 3 I have taken off my robe. Indeed, must I put it on? I have washed my feet. Indeed, must I soil them? 4 My beloved thrust his hand in through the latch opening. My heart pounded for him. 5 I rose up to open for my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the lock. 6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved left, and had gone away. My heart went out when he spoke. I looked for him, but I didn’t find him. I called him, but he didn’t answer. 7 The watchmen who go about the city found me. They beat me. They bruised me. The keepers of the walls took my cloak away from me. 8 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, If you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am faint with love.
John 6:41-51641 The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down out of heaven.”42 They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, ‘I have come down out of heaven?’ ” 43 Therefore Jesus answered them, “Don’t murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father and has learned, comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. 47 Most certainly, I tell you, he who believes in me has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. Yes, the bread which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
1 Peter 3:18-22318 Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, 19 in whom he also went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who before were disobedient, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ship was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. 21 This is a symbol of baptism, which now saves you—not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.
Proud vs. Broken
Proud
Proud people wait for the other to come and ask forgiveness when there is a misunderstanding or conflict in a relationship.
Broken
Broken people take the initiative to be reconciled when there is misunderstanding or conflict in relationships; they race to the cross; they see if they can get there first, no matter how wrong the other may have been.
Meditate on this
2 Timothy 2:22 NKJV
Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.