God Himself Is Judge

A Psalm of ^(A)Asaph.

²³ And ^(A)when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God and ^(B)did not believe him or obey his voice. ^24 (C)You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

^25 (D)“So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. ^26 (E)And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷ Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin, ²⁸ lest the land from which you brought us say, ^(F)“Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” ^29 (G)For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’

New Tablets of Stone

10 “At that time the Lord said to me, ^(H)‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and ^(I)make an ark of wood. ² And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and ^(J)you shall put them in the ark.’ ³ So I made an ark ^(K)of acacia wood, and ^(L)cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. ⁴ And ^(M)he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments^{[a] (N)}that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire ^(O)on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. ⁵ Then I turned and ^(P)came down from the mountain and ^(Q)put the tablets in the ark that I had made. ^(R)And there they are, as the Lord commanded me.”

4 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem ^(A)to have failed to reach it. ² For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because ^(B)they were not united by faith with those who listened.^{[a] 3} For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. ⁴ For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: ^(D)“And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” ⁵ And again in this passage he said,

⁶ Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news ^(F)failed to enter because of disobedience, ⁷ again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

⁸ For if Joshua had given them rest, God^[b] would not have spoken of another day later on. ⁹ So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, ¹⁰ for whoever has entered God's rest has also ^(H)rested from his works as God did from his.

For God So Loved the World

¹⁶ “For ^(A)God so loved ^(B)the world,^{[a] (C)}that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not ^(D)perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For ^(E)God did not send his Son into the world ^(F)to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ^18 (G)Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not ^(H)believed in the name of the only Son of God. ^19 (I)And this is the judgment: ^(J)the light has come into the world, and ^(K)people loved the darkness rather than the light because ^(L)their works were evil. ^20 (M)For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, ^(N)lest his works should be exposed. ²¹ But whoever ^(O)does what is true ^(P)comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”