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VERSES ABOUT JOY
Think about it: the joy of the Lord doesn't just fill you with strength, it brings us all together. It's a joy that's not meant to be kept to yourself; it needs to be shared. Just like the Israelites were instructed to celebrate and share what they had with each other, you can spread the joy of the Lord with everyone you know.
This joy challenges you to love your neighbor and share the Gospel. When your heart is joyful in God, you are strong and empowered to spread that joy throughout your community. It's a lasting joy, something no one can take away.
Psalm 98:4-6 says, "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn— shout for joy before the Lord, the King." You can find so many verses like this that talk about the joy of our God.
I will cause your descendants to become a great nation. I will bless you. Everyone will know your name. You will bring my blessing to other people.
The Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says this: ‘I will bring my people back from the land where they have been prisoners. Then the people in the towns of Judah will again say, “We pray that the Lord will bless you, Jerusalem. You are the special place where he lives on his holy mountain!”
At that time, Israel will join Egypt and Assyria as a third important nation. They will bring blessing to the whole world.
He will love you and he will bless you. He will give you many children so that you become a large nation. He will cause your fields to give you plenty of food: grain, wine and olive oil. He will cause your cows, sheep and goats to have many babies. That is how he will bless you in the land that he promised your ancestors to give you.
Aaron had now finished making the sin offering, the burnt offering and the friendship offering. He lifted up his hands towards the people and he asked God to bless them. Then he came down from the altar.
Stay in this land, and I will be with you. I will bless you. I will give these lands to you and to your descendants. I made a strong promise to your father Abraham. I will make that promise become true.
So Jacob blessed both of Joseph's sons that day. He said, ‘In your name Israel's people will give this blessing: “May God be good to you, as he was to Ephraim and Manasseh.” ’ In this way, Jacob put Ephraim before Manasseh when he blessed them.
I will bless those people who bless you. But I will curse anyone who insults you. I will bless all the families of people on the earth because of you.’
Their descendants will be famous among the other nations. Everyone who sees them will know that the Lord has blessed them.’
The Almighty God, the God of your father, will help you and he will bless you. He will give you rain that comes from the sky above. He will give you springs of water from below the ground. He will cause you to have many descendants. That is how God will bless you.
I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God. Live in a way that pleases him. Obey his commands, his rules and his laws. If you do that, you will live. You will become a nation of many people. The Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are going into as your new home.
Pray that there will be peace in Jerusalem. Pray that people who love Jerusalem will be safe.
Your God says, ‘Comfort my people. Yes, comfort them.
Look! The Almighty Lord is coming with power. He will use his great strength to rule the people. Look again! He is bringing his gifts with him. He brings the prize that he has won in battle.
He takes care of his people, like a shepherd who takes care of his sheep. He picks up the young lambs and he carries them near to his heart. He carefully leads the mother sheep that have lambs.
Nobody has done what God has done! He measured all the water of the seas in one hand. He used his hand to measure the whole sky. He carefully weighed the soil of the earth. He carefully weighed the mountains in his scales, and the hills too.
Nobody understands the mind of the Lord. Nobody can be his advisor, to tell him what he should do.
He does not ask anyone to be his guide. Nobody can teach him the proper way to do things. Nobody can give him knowledge. Nobody can teach him how to understand things.
The Lord looks at the nations as if they are a little bit of water in a bucket. They are like dust on his scales. He weighs the islands as he would weigh dust.
All the trees from Lebanon's forests are not enough to make a fire for his altar. All its animals are not enough to offer to him as burnt offerings.
All the nations in the world are not important to the Lord. He sees them as empty and useless.
You cannot find anyone else who is like God. There is no image that you can make to be like him.
A worker may use special skill to make an idol. Another worker may cover it with gold. He may use silver chains to make it beautiful.
Speak kindly to the people in Jerusalem. Tell them that their time of trouble has now finished. Their punishment has been enough. The Lord has made them pay for their sins. He has made them pay twice.’
From the time that Potiphar gave Joseph authority over everything in his house, the Lord blessed the people of Potiphar's house. The Lord also blessed Potiphar's animals and his crops because of Joseph.
People of Judah and Israel, in past times other nations used your names as a curse. So now I will save you. You will provide a blessing to other nations instead of a curse. Do not be afraid! Be brave and strong.’ That is what the Lord Almighty says.
People who trust in the Lord are strong, like Mount Zion. Nothing can shake it. It will always be there.
The Lord is always near to his people, like the mountains around Jerusalem. He keeps his people safe, now and for ever.
The Lord will keep you safe from all kinds of disease. He will not give you any of the terrible diseases that you saw in Egypt. Instead, he will cause those diseases to hurt the people who hate you.
Praise the Lord, Israel's God, as he deserves. Only he does such wonderful things.
Praise his great name for ever! May his glory fill the whole earth! Amen! May that all happen!
Now you will call other nations to come to you. They will be nations that you did not know before. Nations that did not know you before will now run quickly to you. They will come to you, because they see that you are great. The Lord your God, Israel's Holy God, will make people honour you.’
When your enemies attack you, the Lord will knock them down. They will come from one direction to attack you, but they will run away from you in seven different directions!
The Christians in Macedonia and Achaia chose to share what they had. But really, they have a duty to help the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. It is the Jews who shared good things from God to help the Gentiles in their spiritual lives. So now the Gentiles ought to help the Jewish Christians with the money that they need to live.
Return home, because the Lord Almighty has sent me, Zechariah, with a message. He has sent me to warn the nations who have robbed you. He will use me to bring glory to himself. You are his special people. If anyone hurts you, it is the same as if they hurt God's own eye.
The Bible already said what would happen at a future time. It said that God would make the Gentiles right with himself, if they believed in him. God showed this good news to Abraham a long time before it happened. He said to Abraham, ‘I will bless people from all nations because of you.’
Jerusalem, I never want to forget you. I would rather lose my right hand!
I would rather my tongue could no longer move! Yes, I will always remember you, Jerusalem. You are the most important thing that I think about, more than anything else that makes me happy.
Before I came, you had only a few sheep and goats. Now you have many more animals. Wherever I have worked for you, the Lord has blessed you. But now I want to work to help my own family.’
The mountains may shake to pieces, and the hills may disappear. But I will never take my love away from you. My covenant that brings peace between us will never finish.’ That is what the Lord who is very kind to you says.
The Lord will remember us, and he will bless us. He will bless Israel's people. He will bless Aaron's family.
He will bless everybody who serves him, whether they are important people or not.
I will bless all the nations on the earth through your descendants. I will do this because you have obeyed me.’
Your descendants will be as many as the dust of the earth. They will go to the west and to the east. They will go to the north and to the south. Through you and your descendants I will bless all the families of people on the earth.
When that happens, the Lord your God will punish your enemies with all these terrible troubles, instead of you. He will punish the people who hate you and do cruel things to you.
But you are not like that. You are a special group of people that God has chosen. You serve God like priests who serve a King. You are his own holy people who belong to him. He has taken you out of the dark place of sin, and he has brought you into his great light. God has done all this so that you can tell people how great he is.
The Lord will bless you in the land that he is giving you to live in. So there should be no poor people among you.
The Almighty Lord says, ‘Look! I will lift up my hand, to call the nations. I will raise up a flag as a sign to those people. Then they will bring back your sons and your daughters. They will carry them in their arms and on their shoulders.
The Lord has chosen Zion to be his home.
He said, ‘This is where I will live for ever. This is where I want my home to be.
When the Lord turned us around, so that we enjoyed a good life in Zion again, we thought that we were dreaming!
At that time, we laughed a lot. We sang with joy because we were so happy! People in other countries said to each other, ‘The Lord has done great things for them!’
Say to the people, “This is what the Almighty Lord says: I will take Israel's people out from among the nations where they have gone. I will bring them back together from all those foreign countries. I will bring them to their own land.
In that land, I will make them become one nation. They will live on Israel's mountains. They will have one king to rule over them all. They will never again become two nations or two separate kingdoms.
I have put guards on your walls, Jerusalem. They should never be quiet, during the day and during the night. You people who cause the Lord to remember his promises, never stop and rest!
Do not give the Lord a chance to rest, until he has made Jerusalem strong again. Continue to pray until he makes it a famous city that the whole world will praise.
May the people of many nations serve you. May they respect you as their master. You will rule over your brothers. Yes, your mother's sons will bend down to respect you. May God curse anyone who curses you. And may he bless anyone who blesses you.’
There is a river that runs into the city of God, and it brings God's blessing to the people there. That is the holy place where the Most High God lives.
I will take you out from the nations and all the foreign countries where you have been living. I will bring you back to your own land.
You will become pure, as if I splash you with clean water. I will remove all the things that make you unclean. I will take away the idols that you worship.
I will give you new thoughts. I will put a new spirit in you. You will no longer refuse to obey me. Instead, you will want to please me.
Make your tent bigger! You need more room to live in. Yes, do it! Make the tent's ropes longer! Make the pegs that hold it stronger!
The borders of your land will be wider in all directions. Your descendants will take land from other nations. They will live in the cities that had become empty.
The Lord built his city on the holy mountain.
The Lord loves Zion city, more than any other place where Jacob's descendants live.
People say great things about you! You are God's own city!
I, the Lord, will pour a new spirit on David's descendants and on the people who live in Jerusalem. That spirit will cause them to be kind and to pray for help. So they will look towards me. They will see the one that they have pushed a spear into. They will be sad and weep, as parents weep after the death of their only son. They will weep loudly, as if their firstborn son has died.
I will bless them with many good things as they live around my holy hill. I will send rain at the proper time each year. The rain will bring my blessings to them.
The trees in the fields will give them fruit to eat. Crops of food will grow in the ground. The people will live safely in their land. I will take away the power of those who were cruel to them. I will rescue them from the people who made them their slaves. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
I pray that the Lord will give you many children, and your children too!
I pray that the Lord will bless you all. He is the one who made the whole universe.
The Almighty Lord says, ‘Look! I will lift up my hand, to call the nations. I will raise up a flag as a sign to those people. Then they will bring back your sons and your daughters. They will carry them in their arms and on their shoulders.
The kings of those nations will take care of your children. The kings' daughters will feed them. The rulers will bend down low in front of you, so that their faces touch the ground. They will taste the dirt by your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord. People who wait for me to help them will not become disappointed.
People of all nations, listen to the Lord's message. Shout it aloud for everyone to hear, even those who live on the coasts far away. Say, ‘The Lord chased Israel's people away, but now he will bring them back. He will take care of them, like a shepherd who takes care of his sheep.’
God will rise up and he will chase his enemies away! The people who hate him will quickly run away from him!
Your own people came to live in it. God, because you are kind, you gave many good things to poor people.
The Lord God gives a command! Very many women take his message to other places.
Kings with large armies quickly run away. Yes, they run away! The women at home share the valuable things that the armies have left behind.
Even those who stayed to take care of the sheep found valuable things, like a dove with silver wings and bright gold feathers.
When the Almighty God chased away foreign kings, it was like snow that fell on Mount Zalmon.
Bashan is a very great mountain. It has many high rocks.
You high mountains, why are you jealous when you look at Mount Zion? That is the mountain where God has chosen to live. Yes, that is where the Lord will live for ever!
God has millions of chariots. The Lord God has come from Mount Sinai to his own holy place.
When you went up to the highest place, you took many prisoners with you. You received gifts from men, even from the men who had fought against you. Yes, the Lord God lives there!
Praise the Lord God, as he deserves! Every day he helps us with our troubles. He is the God who keeps us safe!
God, blow them away, as wind blows smoke away. Destroy those wicked people, as wax melts near a fire!
Lord, I love the temple that is your house. It is the place where we clearly see your glory.
‘People in every nation of the whole world will respect my name. People everywhere will offer incense and pure sacrifices to worship me. They will all know that I am great.’ That is what the Lord Almighty says.
In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's temple will be great. It will stand higher than all other mountains. It will stand above all the hills. Crowds of people from all nations will go there all the time.
At that time, people will throw away their silver idols and their gold idols. They made those idols so that they could worship them. But now they will throw them into caves where rats and bats live.
The people themselves will look for caves and holes in the rocks where they can hide. They will try to escape from the Lord's punishment. They will see that he rules with great authority. They will be afraid when he comes to judge the people on earth.
Do not trust people to help you. They are weak and they will all die one day. They are not strong enough to help you.
As they come, people from many nations will say, ‘Come! We will go up to the mountain of the Lord, Jacob's God. We will go to worship him at his temple. He will teach us his laws. Then we can live in a way that pleases him.’ Zion will be the place where people learn about God. The Lord's message will go out from Jerusalem.
When this has happened, God will save all Israel's people. This is written in the Bible: ‘The one who rescues will come from Zion. He will turn Jacob's people away from their sins.
Today, I want the sky and the earth to hear what I have said to you. I have told you what you may choose. You may choose life or death. You may choose the Lord to bless you or to curse you. Choose life today, so that you and your descendants will live!
Then you and your children may decide to turn back to the Lord. You may choose to obey him completely in everything that you think and in everything that you do. That is what I am commanding you to do today.
Yes, love the Lord your God. Obey him and serve him faithfully. He is the one who gives you life. He will let you live for a long time in the land that he is giving to you. That is the land that he promised to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
You have truly blessed those people who live in your temple. They can praise you all the time!
Agree that God is very powerful! He is the King who rules over Israel. He shows his power in the skies.
God, how great you are, as you come from your holy temple! He is the God of Israel. He gives power to his people, and he makes them strong. Praise God as he deserves!