⁵Then the prophet Jeremiah replied to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD. ⁶“Amen!” Jeremiah said. “May the LORD do so! May the LORD fulfill the words you have prophesied, and may He restore the articles of His house and all the exiles back to this place from Babylon. ⁷Nevertheless, listen now to this message I am speaking in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. ⁸The prophets of old who preceded you and me prophesied war, disaster, and plague against many lands and great kingdoms. ⁹As for the prophet who prophesies peace, only if the word of the prophet comes true will the prophet be recognized as one the LORD has truly sent.”

¹⁵³Look upon my affliction and rescue me, for I have not forgotten Your law. ¹⁵⁴Defend my cause and redeem me; revive me according to Your word. ¹⁵⁵Salvation is far from the wicked because they do not seek Your statutes. ¹⁵⁶Great are Your mercies, O LORD; revive me according to Your ordinances. ¹⁵⁷Though my persecutors and foes are many, I have not turned from Your testimonies. ¹⁵⁸I look on the faithless with loathing because they do not keep Your word. ¹⁵⁹Consider how I love Your precepts, O LORD; give me life according to Your loving devotion. ¹⁶⁰The entirety of Your word is truth, and all Your righteous judgments endure forever.

¹ Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? ²For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. ³So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress, even if she marries another man. ⁴Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. ⁵For when we lived according to the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death. ⁶But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. ⁷ What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” ⁸But sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead. ⁹Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. ¹⁰So I discovered that the very commandment that was meant to bring life actually brought death. ¹¹For sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death. ¹²So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. ¹³ Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Certainly not! But in order that sin might be exposed as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

³⁴ Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. ³⁶A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ ³⁷Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; ³⁸and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. ³⁹Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. ⁴⁰ He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives the One who sent Me. ⁴¹Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. ⁴²And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is My disciple, truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward.”