2By continually behaving/acting righteously, people show that they greatly revere Yahweh;those who ◄walk on crooked paths/always deceive others► show that they despise him.
22Those who plan to do things that are evil/wrong are walking on the wrong road;people faithfully love, respect and are loyal to those who plan to do what is good.
27Having an awesome respect for Yahweh is like [MET] having a fountain that gives life;it will help you to escape when something dangerous is threatening to kill you [MET].
1My fellow believers, since God has acted mercifully toward you in so many ways, I appeal to all of you that you present yourselves [SYN] to him by making yourselves like holy sacrifices [MET]. Make yourselves sacrifices that he is pleased with, sacrifices that are living/alive, not ones that are dead/killed. Since God has done so much for you/us, this is the only appropriate way to serve him.
9Love others sincerely! Hate what is evil! Continue to eagerly do what God considers to be good!
14Ask God to be kind to those who ◄persecute you/cause you to suffer► because you believe in Jesus! Ask him to be kind to them; do not ask him to cause bad things to happen to them.
49"Yahweh will cause an army from very far away [HYP] to attack you, whose soldiers speak a language that you do not know/understand. They will swoop down on you quickly like an eagle [SIM] attacks its prey.
51They will kill and eat your livestock, and they will eat your crops, and you will ◄starve/die because you do not have anything to eat►. They will not leave for you any grain or wine or olive oil or cattle or sheep; and you will all die from hunger.
56,57Even the most gentle and sensitive/kind women among you, who are very refined/rich with the result that they have never had to walk anywhere [HYP], will do the same thing. When your enemies have surrounded your towns, those women will be extremely hungry, with the result that after they give birth to a baby, they will secretly kill it and eat its flesh and also eat its afterbirth. And they will not share any of it with their husbands whom they love very much or with any of their other children.
1You people of [APO] Nineveh,your enemies are coming to attack you.So place guards on the tops of the walls around the city!Guard the roads into the city!Get ready to fight!Gather your troops/soldiers [MTY] together!
8The people will rush from Ninevehlike [SIM] water rushes from a broken dam.The officials will shout, "Stop! Stop!"but the people will not even look back as they run away.
10Soon everything valuable in the city will be seized or ruined.People will be trembling, with the result that they will not be able to fight.Their faces will all become pale.
10Yahweh has brought you, Korah, and your fellow descendants of Levi, near to himself. Now are you demanding to become priests also?
46Moses/I said to Aaron, "Quickly take another pan and put in it some burning/hot coals from the altar. Put incense in the pan, and carry it out among the people to atone for the sins of the people. Yahweh is very angry with them, and I know that a ◄severe plague/bad sickness► has already started among them."
47So Aaron did what Moses/I told him. He took the burning incense out among the people. The plague had already started to strike the people, but Aaron continued to burn the incense so that God would forgive them for the sins they had committed.
3I will praise Yahweh [MTY].And all you people should tell others that our God is very great.
4He is like a rock [MET] under which we are protected;everything that he does is perfect and completely just/fair [DOU].He always does what he says that he will do;he never does anything that is wrong.
20He said, ‘They are very wicked/stubborn people,very unfaithful;so I will no longer help them,and then I will watch and see what happens to them.
5But when it is time for the slave to be set free, if the slave says, ‘I love my master and my wife and my children, and I do not want to be set free,’
18Suppose two people fight, and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist. And suppose the person he strikes does not die but is injured and has to stay in bed for a while,
19and later he is able to walk outside using a cane. Then the person who struck him does not have to be punished. However, he must pay the injured person the money he could not earn while he was recovering, and he must also pay the injured person’s medical expenses until that person is well.
8You know that your father and the men who are with him are strong soldiers, and that now they are very angry, like [SIM] a mother bear whose cubs have been stolen from her. Furthermore, your father knows how to fight because he has fought in many battles. He will not stay with his troops during the night.
11"So what I suggest is that you summon all the Israeli soldiers, from Dan in the far north to Beersheba in the far south. They will be as many as the grains of sand on the seashore [HYP]. And then you yourself lead us into the battle.
28brought sleeping mats, bowls, clay pots, barley, wheat flour, parched grain, beans, and lentils to them.
11But when Christ came as our Supreme Priest, he brought the good things that are now available. When he appeared, he went into God’s presence in heaven. That is like a [MET] very great and perfect tent not made by humans {which no human made} [SYN]; that is, it is not part of the world God created. It was better than the tent Moses set up here on earth.
25The Jewish Supreme Priest enters the very holy place once every year, taking blood that is not his own, to offer it as a sacrifice. But when Christ entered heaven, it was not in order to offer himself repeatedly like that.
26If that were so, he would have needed to suffer and shed his blood repeatedly since the time when God created the world. But instead, in this final age, Christ has appeared once in order that by sacrificing himself he could cause that people no longer will be punished for their sins.
15When I went to Jerusalem, the chief priests and the other Jewish elders told me that this man had done many things against their laws. They asked me to condemn him to be executed {judge him so that people could kill him}.
8God has permitted them to be completely pure, like a bride who [MET] dresses in fine linen that is bright and clean.Fine bright and clean linen represents the righteous acts of God’s people.
10I immediately ◄prostrated myself/knelt down► at his feet in order to worship him. But he said to me, "Do not worship me! I am just your (sg) fellow servant and the fellow servant of your (sg) fellow believers who tell people about Jesus. God is the one whom you should worship, because it is the Spirit of God who gives people the power to tell others about Jesus (OR, those who tell others about Jesus are truly declaring the words that the Spirit of God has given them)!"
12His eyes shone like [MET] a flame of fire. There were many royal crowns on his head. A name had been written on him. Only he knows the meaning of that name.
3Because he was extremely angry,he has caused Israel to not be powerful [MET] any more.He has refused to assist uswhen our enemies attacked us.He has destroyed Israellike [SIM] a raging fire destroys everything.
4He bent his bow to prepare to shoot us, his people,as though we were his enemies.He prepared to kill the people whom we love the most [MET],members of our own families.He is extremely angry [MTY] with us people of Jerusalem;his anger is like [SIM] a fire.
19Get up every night and cry out;tell Yahweh what you are feeling.Raise your arms to plead to himto act mercifully to prevent our children from dying;they are fainting on the street cornersbecause they have no food to eat.
21The men who taught the Jewish laws and the rest of the Pharisees began to think within themselves, "Who does this man think he is, saying that? He is insulting God! ◄Nobody can forgive sins!/What person can forgive sins?► [RHQ] Only God can do that!"
22Jesus perceived what they were thinking. So he said to them, "◄You should not think that way about what I said!/Why do you question within yourselves about what I said?► [RHQ] Consider this:
26All the people there were amazed! They praised God and were completely awestruck. They kept saying, "We (inc) have seen wonderful things today!"
2You refuse to help poor people,and you do not allow them to get the things that they should get.You allow people to steal things from widowsand do unfair things to orphans.
17I, Yahweh, who am like [MET] a light for the people of Israel, will be the fire;I, the Holy One, will be like a flame.The soldiers of Assyria are like [MET] thorns and briers,and I will burn them up in one night.
33But listen to this! The Commander of the armies of angelswith his great power will destroy [MET] the mighty army of Assyria.It is as though they are a huge tree [MET] that he will cut down.
6When the servant brought the basket to her, she opened it, and was surprised to see ◄a baby that was/me►, crying. She felt sorry for him/me, and said, "This must be one of the Hebrews’ babies."
9The king’s daughter said to her, "Please take this baby and nurse him for me. I will pay you for doing that." So ◄the woman/my mother► took him/me and nursed him/me.
17Some ◄shepherds/men who took care of other sheep► came and started to chase away the girls. But Moses/I helped/rescued the girls, and got water for their sheep.
7As for me, I wait for Yahweh to help me.I confidently expect that God, my Savior, will answer me when I pray.
18Yahweh, there is no [RHQ] God like you;you forgive the sins [DOU] that were committed by the people who have survived,the people who belong to you.You do not remain angry forever;you are very happy to show us that you faithfully love us.
19You will again act kindly/compassionately toward us.You will get rid of the scroll on which you have written the sins that we have committedas though you were trampling it under your feetor throwing it into the deep ocean.
1Previously our people were like [MET] pure gold,but now they are worthless.Like [MET] the sacred stones in the temple have been scattered,our young men have been scattered.
4My people’s infants’ tongues cling to the roofs/tops of their mouthsbecause they are extremely thirsty;the children plead for some food,but no one gives them any.
20Our king, whom Yahweh appointed,was the one who enabled us to remain alive [MTY];he was the one whom we trusted to protect us [IDM]from the armies of other nations.But he was capturedlike animals are [MET] caught in a pit.
5The people of Nineveh believed God’s message. They all decided that everyone should begin ◄fasting/abstaining from food►. So everyone, including important people and unimportant people, did that. They also put on coarse cloth, to show that they were sorry for having sinned.
6The King of Nineveh heard what the people were doing. So he took off his royal robes, and he also put on coarse cloth. He left his palace, and sat down where there were cold ashes, to show that he also was sorry for having sinned.
8Instead, every person must put on coarse cloth. Put coarse cloth on your animals, too. Then everyone must pray fervently to God. And everyone must stop doing evil actions/things, and stop acting violently toward others.
6Your righteous behavior is as permanent as the highest mountains [MET],your acting justly will continue as long as the deepest oceans exist.You take care of people and you take care of animals.
7God, your faithful love for us is very precious.You protect us like birds protect their baby birds under their wings [MET].
10Continue to faithfully love those who have experienced a relationship with you,and bless those who act righteously/justly.
1My friends, whom I love, because God has promised to accept us(inc) as his children, we (inc) must stop doing anything that is sinful. We must not do sinful things with our bodies, and we must not think sinful thoughts. Because we greatly revere God, we must strive to live a completely pure life. By doing that we will become the kind of people that he wants us to be.
2So, as I just wrote, I want you to love me (OR, us [IDM] who are true apostles of Christ). I/we (exc) have never done anything wrong to any of you. I/we have not done anything to harm any one of you spiritually or financially. And I/we have not tried to get money from you ◄for myself/for ourselves►.
11But think about what happened when you read my letter: God caused you to be truly sorry for what you had done. You eagerly wanted to do what was right, and you wanted to show God (OR, me) that you had done the right thing. You were angry about what had happened, and you were worried that God would punish you if the situation continued. You also wanted me to visit you to encourage and help you. You wanted me to know that you really do accept me as your apostle, and that you punished the man who had sinned, as I told you to do. By doing all of those things, you have shown me that you have done what is right in this matter.