Old/New Testament

113 Hallelujah! O servants of Jehovah, praise his name. ² Blessed is his name forever and forever. ³ Praise him from sunrise to sunset! ⁴ For he is high above the nations; his glory is far greater than the heavens.

⁵ Who can be compared with God enthroned on high? ⁶ Far below him are the heavens and the earth; he stoops to look, ⁷ and lifts the poor from the dirt and the hungry from the garbage dump, ⁸ and sets them among princes! ⁹ He gives children to the childless wife, so that she becomes a happy mother.

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord.

114 Long ago when the Israelis escaped from Egypt, from that land of foreign tongue, ² then the lands of Judah and of Israel became God’s new home and kingdom.

³ The Red Sea saw them coming and quickly broke apart before them. The Jordan River opened up a path for them to cross. ⁴ The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs! ⁵ What’s wrong, Red Sea, that made you cut yourself in two? What happened, Jordan River, to your waters? Why were they held back? ⁶ Why, mountains, did you skip like rams? Why, little hills, like lambs?

⁷ Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, the God of Jacob. ⁸ For he caused gushing streams to burst from flinty rock.

115 Glorify your name, not ours, O Lord! Cause everyone to praise your loving-kindness and your truth. ² Why let the nations say, “Their God is dead!”^[a]

³ For he is in the heavens and does as he wishes. ⁴ Their gods are merely man-made things of silver and of gold. ⁵ They can’t talk or see, despite their eyes and mouths! ⁶ Nor can they hear, nor smell, ⁷ nor use their hands or feet, nor speak! ⁸ And those who make and worship them are just as foolish as their idols are.

⁹ O Israel, trust the Lord! He is your helper. He is your shield. ¹⁰ O priests of Aaron, trust the Lord! He is your helper; he is your shield. ¹¹ All of you, his people, trust in him. He is your helper; he is your shield.

¹² Jehovah is constantly thinking about us, and he will surely bless us. He will bless the people of Israel and the priests of Aaron, ¹³ and all, both great and small, who reverence him.

¹⁴ May the Lord richly bless both you and your children. ¹⁵ Yes, Jehovah who made heaven and earth will personally bless you! ¹⁶ The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to all mankind.

¹⁷ The dead cannot sing praises to Jehovah here on earth,^{[b] 18} but we can! We praise him forever! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

6 How is it that when you have something against another Christian, you “go to law” and ask a heathen court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other Christians to decide which of you is right? ² Don’t you know that someday we Christians are going to judge and govern the world? So why can’t you decide even these little things among yourselves? ³ Don’t you realize that we Christians will judge and reward the very angels in heaven? So you should be able to decide your problems down here on earth easily enough. ⁴ Why then go to outside judges who are not even Christians?^{[a] 5} I am trying to make you ashamed. Isn’t there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these arguments? ⁶ But, instead, one Christian sues another and accuses his Christian brother in front of unbelievers.

⁷ To have such lawsuits at all is a real defeat for you as Christians. Why not just accept mistreatment and leave it at that? It would be far more honoring to the Lord to let yourselves be cheated. ⁸ But, instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong, cheating others, even your own brothers.

^9-10 Don’t you know that those doing such things have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who live immoral lives, who are idol worshipers, adulterers or homosexuals—will have no share in his Kingdom. Neither will thieves or greedy people, drunkards, slanderers, or robbers. ¹¹ There was a time when some of you were just like that but now your sins are washed away, and you are set apart for God; and he has accepted you because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you.

¹² I can do anything I want to if Christ has not said no,^[b] but some of these things aren’t good for me. Even if I am allowed to do them, I’ll refuse to if I think they might get such a grip on me that I can’t easily stop when I want to. ¹³ For instance, take the matter of eating. God has given us an appetite for food and stomachs to digest it. But that doesn’t mean we should eat more than we need. Don’t think of eating as important because someday God will do away with both stomachs and food.

But sexual sin is never right: our bodies were not made for that but for the Lord, and the Lord wants to fill our bodies with himself. ¹⁴ And God is going to raise our bodies from the dead by his power just as he raised up the Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵ Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts and members of Christ? So should I take part of Christ and join him to a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶ And don’t you know that if a man joins himself to a prostitute she becomes a part of him and he becomes a part of her? For God tells us in the Scripture that in his sight the two become one person. ¹⁷ But if you give yourself to the Lord, you and Christ are joined together as one person.

¹⁸ That is why I say to run from sex sin. No other sin affects the body as this one does. When you sin this sin it is against your own body. ¹⁹ Haven’t you yet learned that your body is the home of the Holy Spirit God gave you, and that he lives within you? Your own body does not belong to you. ²⁰ For God has bought you with a great price. So use every part of your body to give glory back to God because he owns it.