October 24: Jeremiah 8-9; Psalm 106:1-23; Romans 3-4

Jeremiah 8-9

8 “At that time, declares the LORD, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. And they shall not be gathered or buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, declares the LORD of hosts.

Sin and Treachery

  “You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD:
  When men fall, do they not rise again?
    If one turns away, does he not return?
  Why then has this people turned away
    in perpetual backsliding?
  They hold fast to deceit;
    they refuse to return.
  I have paid attention and listened,
    but they have not spoken rightly;
  no man relents of his evil,
    saying, ‘What have I done?’
  Everyone turns to his own course,
    like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
  Even the stork in the heavens
    knows her times,
  and the turtledove, swallow, and crane¹
    keep the time of their coming,
  but my people know not
    the rules² of the LORD.
  “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    and the law of the LORD is with us’?
  But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
    has made it into a lie.
  The wise men shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed and taken;
  behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD,
    so what wisdom is in them?
  Therefore I will give their wives to others
    and their fields to conquerors,
  because from the least to the greatest
    everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
  from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.
  They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
    saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
    when there is no peace.
  Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
    No, they were not at all ashamed;
    they did not know how to blush.
  Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
    when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
      says the LORD.
  When I would gather them, declares the LORD,
    there are no grapes on the vine,
    nor figs on the fig tree;
  even the leaves are withered,
    and what I gave them has passed away from them.”³
  Why do we sit still?
  Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities
    and perish there,
  for the LORD our God has doomed us to perish
    and has given us poisoned water to drink,
    because we have sinned against the LORD.
  We looked for peace, but no good came;
    for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
  “The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;
    at the sound of the neighing of their stallions
    the whole land quakes.
  They come and devour the land and all that fills it,
    the city and those who dwell in it.
  For behold, I am sending among you serpents,
    adders that cannot be charmed,
    and they shall bite you,”
      declares the LORD.

Jeremiah Grieves for His People

  My joy is gone; grief is upon me;⁴
    my heart is sick within me.
  Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
    from the length and breadth of the land:
  “Is the LORD not in Zion?
    Is her King not in her?”
  “Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
    and with their foreign idols?”
  “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
    and we are not saved.”
  For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
    I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
  Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
  Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
    not been restored?
9   ⁵ Oh that my head were waters,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
  that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of the daughter of my people!
  ⁶ Oh that I had in the desert
    a travelers' lodging place,
  that I might leave my people
    and go away from them!
  For they are all adulterers,
    a company of treacherous men.
  They bend their tongue like a bow;
    falsehood and not truth has grown strong⁷ in the land;
  for they proceed from evil to evil,
    and they do not know me, declares the LORD.
  Let everyone beware of his neighbor,
    and put no trust in any brother,
  for every brother is a deceiver,
    and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer.
  Everyone deceives his neighbor,
    and no one speaks the truth;
  they have taught their tongue to speak lies;
    they weary themselves committing iniquity.
  Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit,
    they refuse to know me, declares the LORD.
  Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts:
  “Behold, I will refine them and test them,
    for what else can I do, because of my people?
  Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
    it speaks deceitfully;
  with his mouth each speaks peace to his neighbor,
    but in his heart he plans an ambush for him.
  Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD,
    and shall I not avenge myself
    on a nation such as this?
  “I will take up weeping and wailing for the mountains,
    and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness,
  because they are laid waste so that no one passes through,
    and the lowing of cattle is not heard;
  both the birds of the air and the beasts
    have fled and are gone.
  I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins,
    a lair of jackals,
  and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,
    without inhabitant.”

Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through? And the LORD says: “Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them poisonous water to drink. I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

  Thus says the LORD of hosts:
  “Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
    send for the skillful women to come;
  let them make haste and raise a wailing over us,
    that our eyes may run down with tears
    and our eyelids flow with water.
  For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
    ‘How we are ruined!
    We are utterly shamed,
  because we have left the land,
    because they have cast down our dwellings.’”
  Hear, O women, the word of the LORD,
    and let your ear receive the word of his mouth;
  teach to your daughters a lament,
    and each to her neighbor a dirge.
  For death has come up into our windows;
    it has entered our palaces,
  cutting off the children from the streets
    and the young men from the squares.
  Speak: “Thus declares the LORD,
  ‘The dead bodies of men shall fall
    like dung upon the open field,
  like sheaves after the reaper,
    and none shall gather them.’”

Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh—Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”

(ESV)

Psalm 106:1-23

Give Thanks to the Lord, for He Is Good

106   Praise the LORD!
  Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever!
  Who can utter the mighty deeds of the LORD,
    or declare all his praise?
  Blessed are they who observe justice,
    who do righteousness at all times!
  Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor to your people;
    help me when you save them,¹
  that I may look upon the prosperity of your chosen ones,
    that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation,
    that I may glory with your inheritance.
  Both we and our fathers have sinned;
    we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.
  Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,
    did not consider your wondrous works;
  they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,
    but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.
  Yet he saved them for his name's sake,
    that he might make known his mighty power.
  He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry,
    and he led them through the deep as through a desert.
  So he saved them from the hand of the foe
    and redeemed them from the power of the enemy.
  And the waters covered their adversaries;
    not one of them was left.
  Then they believed his words;
    they sang his praise.
  But they soon forgot his works;
    they did not wait for his counsel.
  But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness,
    and put God to the test in the desert;
  he gave them what they asked,
    but sent a wasting disease among them.
  When men in the camp were jealous of Moses
    and Aaron, the holy one of the LORD,
  the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan,
    and covered the company of Abiram.
  Fire also broke out in their company;
    the flame burned up the wicked.
  They made a calf in Horeb
    and worshiped a metal image.
  They exchanged the glory of God²
    for the image of an ox that eats grass.
  They forgot God, their Savior,
    who had done great things in Egypt,
  wondrous works in the land of Ham,
    and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.
  Therefore he said he would destroy them—
    had not Moses, his chosen one,
  stood in the breach before him,
    to turn away his wrath from destroying them.

(ESV)

Romans 3-4

God's Righteousness Upheld

3 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,

  “That you may be justified in your words,
    and prevail when you are judged.”

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.

No One Is Righteous

What then? Are we Jews¹ any better off?² No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:

  “None is righteous, no, not one;
    no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.”
  “Their throat is an open grave;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”
  “The venom of asps is under their lips.”
    “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
  “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
    in their paths are ruin and misery,
  and the way of peace they have not known.”
    “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being³ will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

The Righteousness of God Through Faith

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Abraham Justified by Faith

4 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in⁴ him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

  “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
    and whose sins are covered;
  blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

The Promise Realized Through Faith

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness⁵ of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

(ESV)