Study Desk

The third that is left I will test with fire, purifying them like silver, testing them like gold. Then they will call on me, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘You are my people,' and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.'"

You will run through this mountain valley to the other side, just as you ran from the earthquake when Uzziah was king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him.

"Now ask God to be kind to you, but he won't accept you with such offerings," says the Lord All-Powerful.

We all have the same father; the same God made us. So why do people break their promises to each other and show no respect for the agreement our ancestors made with God?

The people of Judah have broken their promises. They have done something God hates in Israel and Jerusalem: The people of Judah did not respect the Temple that the Lord loves, and the men of Judah married women who worship foreign gods.

God made husbands and wives to become one body and one spirit for his purpose—so they would have children who are true to God. So be careful, and do not break your promise to the wife you married when you were young.

The Lord God of Israel says, "I hate divorce. And I hate people who do cruel things as easily as they put on clothes," says the Lord All-Powerful. So be careful. And do not break your trust.

You have tired the Lord with your words. You ask, "How have we tired him?" You did it by saying, "The Lord thinks anyone who does evil is good, and he is pleased with them." Or you asked, "Where is the God who is fair?"

"Should a person rob God? But you are robbing me. "You ask, ‘How have we robbed you?' "You have robbed me in your offerings and the tenth of your crops.

"You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. It did no good to obey his laws and to show the Lord All-Powerful that we were sorry for what we did.

So we say that proud people are happy. Evil people succeed. They challenge God and get away with it.'"

You will again see the difference between good and evil people, between those who serve God and those who don't.

"The virgin will be pregnant. She will have a son, and they will name him Immanuel," which means "God is with us."

But God warned the wise men in a dream not to go back to Herod, so they returned to their own country by a different way.

So what God had said through the prophet Jeremiah came true:

to a town called Nazareth, and lived there. And so what God had said through the prophets came true: "He will be called a Nazarene."

And don't think you can say to yourselves, ‘Abraham is our father.' I tell you that God could make children for Abraham from these rocks.

The devil came to Jesus to tempt him, saying, "If you are the Son of God, tell these rocks to become bread."

Jesus answered, "It is written in the Scriptures, ‘A person lives not on bread alone, but by everything God says.'"

The devil said, "If you are the Son of God, jump down, because it is written in the Scriptures: ‘He has put his angels in charge of you. They will catch you in their hands so that you will not hit your foot on a rock.'" Psalm 91:11–12