4 Ask Yahweh to help you and give you his strength,

and continue to ask him!

11 Trust in Yahweh and in his power;

continually seek to get help from him.

6 Seek to know me while it is still possible for you to do that;

call to me while I am near!

4 There is one thing that I have requested from Yahweh;

this is the one thing that I desire:

That I may worship in Yahweh’s house/temple every day of my life,

and see that Yahweh is wonderful

and inquire what he wants me to do.

10 For me, spending one day in your temple

is better than spending 1,000 days somewhere else;

standing at the entrance to your temple, ready to go inside,

is better than living in the tents/homes where wicked people live.

11 You will show me the road that leads to receiving eternal life,

and you will make me joyful when I am with you.

I will have pleasure forever when I am ◄at your right hand/seated next to you►.

17 Yahweh hears righteous people when they call out to him;

he rescues them from all their troubles.

18 Yahweh is always ready to help those who are discouraged;

he rescues those who have nothing good to hope for.

5 Act in such a way that everyone can know that you are gentle. The Lord is coming soon.

13 But now, because of your relationship with Christ Jesus, God has brought you, who had no relationship with him [MET], into his family [MET]. He did that because you trusted in what Christ accomplished when his blood [MTY] flowed from his body when he died on the cross.

6 I am certain that you will be good to me

and act mercifully toward me

as long as I live;

and then, O Yahweh, I will live in your home in heaven forever.

18 When I leave you, I will not let you be alone/helpless [MET]. When I send the Spirit, it will be like I am coming back to you (OR, When I rise from the dead, I will come back to you.)

57 I pray that our God will be with us like he was with our ancestors, and that he will never abandon us.

31 But because you act very mercifully, you did not get rid of them completely or abandon them forever. You are a very gracious/kind and merciful God!

16 I pray that our Lord Jesus himself, who gives inner peace to his people, will give inner peace to you always ◄and in every situation/whatever happens►.

I pray that our Lord Jesus will continue to help you all.

11 Finally, my fellow believers, I say to you, be joyful. Completely change how you conduct your lives, and do what I have urged you to do. Be united in what you think about the matters about which I have written to you. Live peacefully with each other. If you do those things, God, who enables you to love each other and be peaceful, will bless [MTY] you.

13 I will tell you how we can be sure that we have a close relationship with God and that God is within us: He has put his Spirit within us.

18 No one has ever seen God. But God’s only Son, Jesus, who has always had a very close relationship with God, has told us about God.

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.

9 Heal the people there who are sick. Tell them, ‘It is almost time for God to send his king to rule [MET] your lives.’

1 The Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Obed. 2 Azariah went to talk with Asa, and said to him, "Asa and all you men of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, listen to me. Yahweh is with you whenever you are trusting in him. If you request him to help you, he will help you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you. 3 For many years the Israeli people did not know the true God, and they did not have priests or God’s laws. 4 But when they experienced trouble, they turned to Yahweh our God, and requested him to help them. And he helped them. 5 At that time, people were not safe when they traveled, because all the people who lived in the nearby countries were experiencing many difficulties. 6 The people of various nations were thoroughly defeated by armies of other nations, and people in some cities were crushed by armies from other cities, because God was allowing them to experience many difficulties. 7 But you people, you must be strong and do not become discouraged, because God will reward you for what you do to please him."

8 When Asa heard what the prophet Azariah said, he was encouraged. He commanded his workers to remove all the detestable idols from everywhere in the land of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and from the towns that his soldiers had captured in the hills of the tribe of Ephraim. Asa’s workers repaired the altar where people offered sacrifices to Yahweh that was in front of the entrance to the temple in Jerusalem. 9 Then he gathered all the people of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and many people from the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were living among them. He was able to do that because many people from those tribes in Israel had come to me to Judah when they realized that Yahweh, the God that Asa worshiped, was helping him.

10 After Asa had been ruling for almost 15 years, in May of that year, those people gathered in Jerusalem. 11 At that time they sacrificed to Yahweh 700 bulls and 7,000 sheep and goats, from the animals that they had captured when they defeated the army of Ethiopia/Sudan. 12 They solemnly made an agreement to very sincerely worship Yahweh, the God whom their ancestors worshiped. 13 They promised to execute all those who would not worship Yahweh, including those who were important and those who were not important, both men and women. 14 They shouted and blew trumpets and other horns while they solemnly promised to do that. 15 All the people who were living in Judah were happy with the agreement because they had solemnly and very sincerely promised to keep it. They eagerly requested help from Yahweh, and he helped them. So he enabled them to have peace throughout their country.

16 King Asa’s grandmother Maacah had made a disgusting pole for worshiping the goddess Asherah. So Asa commanded his workers to cut down that pole and chop it into pieces and burn it in the Kidron Valley. He then did not allow Maacah to continue to influence the people because of her being the mother of the previous king. 17 Although Asa’s workers did not get rid of the shrines on the hilltops in Israel, he was very determined to do what pleased Yahweh all his life. 18 He ordered his workers to bring into God’s temple all the silver and gold and other valuable items that he and his father had dedicated to God.

19 There were no more wars in Judah until Asa had been ruling Judah almost 35 years.