8 God also said to Noah and his sons, 9 "Listen carefully. I am now making a solemn promise to you and with your descendants, 10 and with all the living creatures that are with you—including the birds, the livestock, and the wild animals—every living creature on the earth that came out of the boat with you. 11 This is the promise that I am making to you: I will never again destroy all living creatures by a flood, or destroy everything else on the earth by a flood." 12 Then God said to him, "This is the sign to guarantee that I will keep the promise that I am making to you and to all living creatures, a promise that I will keep forever: 13 From time to time I will put a rainbow in the sky. It will remind me of my promise that I have made to you and everything on the earth.

11 This is the promise that I am making to you: I will never again destroy all living creatures by a flood, or destroy everything else on the earth by a flood."

13 From time to time I will put a rainbow in the sky. It will remind me of my promise that I have made to you and everything on the earth.

18 And on that day Yahweh made an agreement with Abram. Yahweh told him, "I will give to your descendants all the land between the river that is on the eastern border of Egypt to the south, and north to the huge Euphrates River. 19 That is the land where the Ken, the Keniz, the Kidmon, 20 the Heth, the Periz, the Repha, 21 the Amor, the Canaan, the Girgash, and the Tebus people-groups live."

3 Abram prostrated himself with his face on the ground. Then God said to him, 4 "Listen to this agreement that I am making with you: People of many nations will be your descendants. 5 And no longer will your name be Abram. Instead, your name will be Abraham, which means ‘father of many nations,’ because the people of many nations will descend from you. 6 I will enable you to have very many descendants, and I will cause them to become great nations/people-groups, and some of your descendants will become kings. 7 I will make this agreement between me and you and your descendants. It will be an everlasting agreement to be in effect for many generations. This agreement is that I will be your God, and the God of your descendants. 8 I will give to you and to your descendants the land through which you are now traveling, all of the Canaan region. It will be an everlasting possession for your descendants, and I will be the God that they will worship."

9 Then God said to Abraham, "Now you must obey your part of the agreement that I am making with you, and your descendants must also obey it, for all generations. 10 This is the agreement that I am making, between myself and you and all your descendants: Every male among you must be circumcised. 11 ◄Cutting the foreskins of/Circumcising► them will be the sign that you have accepted the agreement I am making with you.

5 The next year, King Chedorlaomer and the other kings that were his allies took their armies and defeated the Repha people-group in Ashteroth-Karnaim and the Zuz people-group in Ham, and the Emi people-group in Shaveh-Kiriathaim.

5 So now, if you will do what I tell you and obey all that I command you, you will be my own people. All the people-groups on the earth are mine, but you will be ◄dearer/more special► to me than all the other people-groups.

31 I will cause the borders of your land to extend from the ◄Red Sea/Gulf of Aqaba► in the southeast to the Mediterranean Sea in the northwest, and from the Sinai Desert in the southwest to the Euphrates River in the northeast of the country. I will enable you [MTY] to expel the people who live there, so that you will expel them as you occupy more of the country. 32 You must not make any agreement/treaty with those people or with their gods.

10 Yahweh replied, "Note this: I am going to make a solemn agreement with the Israeli people. As they are watching, I will perform great miracles. They will be miracles that no one has ever done on the earth in any nation. All the people who are near you will see the great things that I, Yahweh, will do. I will do awesome things for you all.

28 Moses/I was there on the top of the mountain with Yahweh for 40 days and nights. During that time he/I did not eat or drink anything [SYN]. He/I engraved on the stone slabs the words of the Ten Commandments, which were part of Yahweh’s solemn agreement.

28 Moses/I was there on the top of the mountain with Yahweh for 40 days and nights. During that time he/I did not eat or drink anything [SYN]. He/I engraved on the stone slabs the words of the Ten Commandments, which were part of Yahweh’s solemn agreement.

13 And he declared to them his agreement. That agreement contained the Ten Commandments that he wants you to obey. He wrote those on two stone tablets.

9 So do not forget that Yahweh our God is the only/true God. He will do what he agreed to do for you, and he will faithfully love ◄for 1,000 generations/forever► all those who love him and who obey his commandments.

14 So when the Israeli people packed up their tents in order to cross the river, the priests who were carrying the chest containing the Ten Commandments went in front of them. 15 It was springtime, when people harvest their crops, and at that time the river floods over its banks. But as soon as the priests reached the edge of the river and stepped into the water, 16 the water stopped flowing. The water piled up far upstream, at a town named Adam, near Zarethan. The water stopped flowing down to the Dead Sea. So the people were able to cross the river near Jericho. 17 The priests who were carrying the chest containing the Ten Commandments that Yahweh had given them stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan riverbed, while the rest of the Israeli people crossed the river as though they were crossing dry ground.

17 Then Jehoiada made a solemn agreement between the king and the people, that they would always ◄obey/be faithful to► Yahweh. He also made an agreement requiring the people to be loyal to Joash their king.

3 Then the king stood next to the pillar where the kings stood when they made important announcements, and while Yahweh was listening, he repeated his promise to sincerely obey [DOU] all of Yahweh’s commands and regulations [DOU]. He also promised to ◄fulfill the conditions of/do what was written in► the agreement he made with Yahweh. And all the people also promised to obey the agreement.

6 So King Joram left Samaria and gathered together all his soldiers. 7 Then he sent this message to Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah: "The king of Moab has rebelled against me. So will your army join my army and fight against the army of Moab?"

Jehoshaphat replied, "Yes, we will help you. We are ready to do whatever you want us to. My soldiers and my horses are ready to help you."

16 David agreed. So Jonathan made a solemn agreement with David. And he said, "I hope/desire that Yahweh will get rid of all your enemies." 17 And Jonathan requested David to repeat his solemn promise to be his close friend, because Jonathan loved David as much as he loved himself.

10 Then Yahweh said to Moses/me, 11 "Phinehas has caused me to stop being angry with the Israeli people, by being as eager as I am to stop this sinful behavior. I was ready to get rid of all the Israeli people because I was extremely angry, but Phinehas has prevented me from doing that. 12 Now tell him that I am making a special peace agreement with him. 13 In this agreement, I am promising to give to him and to his descendants the right/authority to be priests. I am doing this because he showed that he was very eager to honor me, his God, by stopping this sinful behavior. He has caused the Israeli people to become acceptable to me again by causing them to be forgiven for their sin."

89 Whenever Moses/I entered the Sacred Tent to talk with Yahweh, he/I heard Yahweh’s voice speaking between the two images of creatures with wings that were above the lid of the sacred chest.

1 Then Yahweh said to Moses/me, 2 "Tell the Israeli people to bring to you twelve walking sticks. They should bring one from each of the leaders of the twelve tribes. You should carve each leader’s name on his stick. 3 There must be one stick for the leader of each tribe, so you must carve Aaron’s name on the stick for the tribe of Levi. 4 Put those sticks inside the Sacred Tent, in front of the sacred chest that has in it the tablets on which the Ten Commandments are written. That is the place where I always talk with you. 5 Buds will sprout on the stick of the man whom I have chosen to be the priest. When the people see that, they will stop their constantly complaining about you because they will realize that you are the one whom I have chosen."

6 So Moses/I told the people what Yahweh had said. Then each of the twelve Israeli leaders, including Aaron, brought his walking stick to Moses/me. 7 Moses/I placed the sticks inside the Sacred Tent in front of the sacred chest.

8 The following morning, when he/I went into the tent, he/I saw that Aaron’s stick, which represented the tribe of Levi, had sprouted, it had produced leaves and blossoms, and it had also produced almonds that were ripe! 9 Moses/I brought all the sticks out of the Sacred Tent and showed them to the people. Each of the twelve leaders took back his own stick.

10 Then Yahweh said to Moses/me, "Put Aaron’s stick in front of the sacred chest, and let it stay there permanently. That will be a warning to people who want to rebel against me. Then no more people will die because of complaining against me." 11 So Moses/I did what Yahweh had commanded.

12 After that, the Israelis again did things that Yahweh said were very evil. As a result, he allowed the army of King Eglon, who ruled the Moab area, to defeat the Israelis. 13 Eglon persuaded the leaders of the Ammon and Amalek people-groups to join their armies with his army to attack Israel. They captured Jericho, which was called ‘The City of Palm Trees’.

31 I, Yahweh, say this: ‘There will be a time when I will make a new agreement with the people of Israel and Judah. 32 This new agreement will not be like the agreement that I made with their ancestors when I took them by their hands and led them out of Egypt. They broke that agreement, even though I loved them like [MET] husbands love their wives.’ 33 This is what I, Yahweh, say: ‘This is the new agreement that I will make with the people of Israel some day: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their inner beings. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 And it will not be necessary for them to teach their neighbors or their relatives and say, "You need to know Yahweh," because everyone, including unimportant people and very important people, will already know me. And I will forgive them for having been very wicked, and I will never think again about the sins that they have committed.’ "

20 "This is what I, Yahweh, say: ‘You certainly cannot annul my promise/agreement to cause nighttime to follow daytime each day. 21 Similarly, you cannot annul the promise/agreement that I made with King David, who served me well, that there will always be descendants of his who will rule Judah. The same is true for my agreement with the descendants of Levi who are priests who do work for me.

15 By dying for us, Christ ◄redeemed/set free from the penalty for their sins► even those who disobeyed the conditions of (OR, during the time of) the first covenant. So, because no one could be made perfect by obeying the old covenant, now Christ establishes between God and people a new covenant. He does that in order that those whom God has chosen may eternally have the blessings that God has promised them.

15 By dying for us, Christ ◄redeemed/set free from the penalty for their sins► even those who disobeyed the conditions of (OR, during the time of) the first covenant. So, because no one could be made perfect by obeying the old covenant, now Christ establishes between God and people a new covenant. He does that in order that those whom God has chosen may eternally have the blessings that God has promised them.

6 But now as it is, Christ ministers in a more excellent way than the Jewish priests do. Likewise, the new covenant that he established between God and people is better than the old one. When the new covenant was established {God established the new covenant}, he promised us better things than the laws that God gave Moses did.

20 Jesus provides for us, protects us, and guides us as a great shepherd does for his sheep [MET]. And God, who gives us inner peace, brought our Lord Jesus back to life. By doing that, God ratified his eternal covenant with us by the blood that flowed from Jesus when he died on the cross. 21 So I pray that God will equip you with everything good that you need in order that you may do the things that he desires. May he accomplish in our lives whatever he considers pleasing as a result of Jesus Christ equipping us. May Jesus Christ be praised forever. ◄Amen!/May it be so!►

6 He is the one who enables us (exc) to be his messengers. He has enabled us to tell people the message about the new agreement that he is making with them. This is not a message about obeying all the written laws of his old agreement that he made with the Jewish people. Instead, it is a message about God giving us his Spirit. Previously, God condemned people to be separated from him forever if they did not obey his laws. But by God’s new agreement his Spirit enables people to live eternally.

24 I am telling you this as an illustration. These two women symbolize two agreements. God made the first agreement, which involved obeying the laws that God gave to Moses at Sinai Mountain. Because that agreement forces those who accept it to keep obeying all its rules [MET], it is like a slave mother who gives birth to slaves. So Hagar, the female slave, symbolizes that agreement. 25 Also, the word ‘Hagar’ is associated with Sinai Mountain, which is in Arabia land. Hagar, the female slave, also represents Jerusalem as it is today. Jerusalem is like [MET] a slave mother, and those who live there [PRS] are like her slave children [MET] because they all must obey the laws that God gave to Moses. 26 But there will be a new Jerusalem in heaven [MTY], and we who will go there are free from having to obey Jewish laws. We who belong to that city consider it to be our mother [MET] city because we are God’s true children.

17 But Yahweh will faithfully keep loving forever

all those who revere him.

He will act fairly to our children and to their children;

18 he will act that way to all those who obey the agreement he made with them to bless them if they did what he told them to do,

to all those who obey what he has commanded.

21 This is what Yahweh says to his people: "This is the agreement that I will make with you:

My Spirit will not leave you,

and you will always have my message.

You will be able to declare it [MTY],

and your children and grandchildren will be able to declare it forever."

25 I will make a peace agreement with the people of Israel. In this agreement I will promise to get rid of all the wild animals in Israel, in order that my people may live safely, even in the desert and in the forests.

8 It is Yahweh who will go ahead of you. He will be with you. He will always help [LIT] you. He will never abandon you. So do not be afraid or dismayed."

27 That ruler will make a strong agreement with many people. He will promise to do for seven years what he has said in that agreement. But when that time is half finished, he will prevent priests from giving any more offerings and sacrifices to God. A disgusting idol will be put on the highest part of the temple, and it will stay there until God gets rid of the one who put it there, which is what he said that he would do."

5 Then the King of Egypt [MTY] will become very powerful. But one of his army generals will become more powerful than he is, and he will rule a bigger area. 6 Several years later, the King of Egypt and the King of Syria will make an ◄alliance/agreement to help each other► [MTY]. The King of Syria will give his daughter to the King of Egypt to become his wife. But she will not be able to influence him [MTY] very long, and that woman, her husband, her child, and her servants will all be killed/assassinated.

16 So the King of Syria will do whatever he wants to, and no one will be able to oppose him. His army will occupy the glorious land of Israel and completely control/subdue it. 17 Then he will decide to march south with all the soldiers from his kingdom. He will make an alliance with the King of Egypt and in order that his own daughter will help him to destroy the kingdom of Egypt, he will give her to the King of Egypt to become his wife. But that plan will fail.

1 "I solemnly promised myself

that I would not look at a young woman with a desire to have sex with her.

16 If you are wise [PRS], you will also be saved from ◄immoral women/prostitutes►;

you will not pay attention when adulterous women try to ◄seduce/entice you by what they say.►

17 Those women have left the husbands whom they married when they were young;

they have disregarded the solemn promise they made to God not to commit adultery.