New Testament·1 Thessalonians 4
1Finally, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus to live in a way that is pleasing to God, just as you have received from us. This is how you already live, so you should do so all the more. 2For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3For it is God’s will that you should be holy: You must abstain from sexual immorality; 4each of you must know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God; 6and no one should ever violate or exploit his brother in this regard, because the Lord will avenge all such acts, as we have already told you and solemnly warned you. 7For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness. 8Anyone, then, who rejects this command does not reject man but God, the very One who gives you His Holy Spirit. 9Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. 10And you are indeed showing this love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel more and more 11and to aspire to live quietly, to attend to your own matters, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you. 12Then you will behave properly toward outsiders, without being dependent on anyone. 13Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. 15By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. 17After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. 18Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Old Testament·Jeremiah 19–21
1This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests, 2and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I speak to you, 3saying, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring, 4because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind. 6So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. 7And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. 8I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds. 9I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’ 10Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you, 11and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them. 12This is what I will do to this place and to its residents, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth. 13The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like that place, Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.” 14Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and proclaimed to all the people, 15“This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”
20When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer and the chief official in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, 2he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD. 3The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib. 4For this is what the LORD says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. And I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon, and he will carry them away to Babylon and put them to the sword. 5I will give away all the wealth of this city—all its products and valuables, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—to their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon. 6And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon, and there you will die and be buried—you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied these lies.’” 7You have deceived me, O LORD, and I was deceived. You have overcome me and prevailed. I am a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. 8For whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and destruction. For the word of the LORD has become to me a reproach and derision all day long. 9If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail. 10For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!” All my trusted friends watch for my fall: “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.” 11But the LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior. Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly put to shame, with an everlasting disgrace that will never be forgotten. 12O LORD of Hosts, who examines the righteous, who sees the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause. 13Sing to the LORD! Praise the LORD! For He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers. 14Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed. 15Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, saying, “A son is born to you,” bringing him great joy. 16May that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without compassion. May he hear an outcry in the morning and a battle cry at noon, 17because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb forever enlarged. 18Why did I come out of the womb to see only trouble and sorrow, and to end my days in shame?
21This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur son of Malchijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah. They said, 2“Please inquire of the LORD on our behalf, since Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is waging war against us. Perhaps the LORD will perform for us something like all His past wonders, so that Nebuchadnezzar will withdraw from us.” 3But Jeremiah answered, “You are to tell Zedekiah that 4this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will turn against you the weapons of war in your hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will assemble their forces in the center of this city. 5And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with anger, fury, and great wrath. 6I will strike down the residents of this city, both man and beast. They will die in a terrible plague.’ 7‘After that,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’ 8Furthermore, you are to tell this people that this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. 9Whoever stays in this city will die by sword and famine and plague, but whoever goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who besiege you will live; he will retain his life like a spoil of war. 10For I have set My face against this city to bring disaster and not good, declares the LORD. It will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, who will destroy it with fire.’ 11Moreover, tell the house of the king of Judah to hear the word of the LORD. 12O house of David, this is what the LORD says: ‘Administer justice every morning, and rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor, or My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it because of their evil deeds. 13Behold, I am against you who dwell above the valley, atop the rocky plateau— declares the LORD— you who say, “Who can come against us? Who can enter our dwellings?” 14I will punish you as your deeds deserve, declares the LORD. I will kindle a fire in your forest that will consume everything around you.’”
Life is short. Where are you going?
You just read God’s own words, and one day every one of us will stand before Him. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). This life will be over sooner than you think — do you know where you are going when it is?
The Bible says, “Man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). If you died today, would you be ready?
Are you a good person?
Most of us think we are. But God doesn’t measure us against other people — He measures us by His Law. Look honestly at the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3–17):
- You shall have no other gods before Me.
- You shall not make for yourself an idol.
- You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
- Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
- Honor your father and mother.
- You shall not murder.
- You shall not commit adultery.
- You shall not steal.
- You shall not bear false witness.
- You shall not covet.
Have you ever told a lie — even a small one? Have you ever taken something that wasn’t yours? Have you ever used God’s name as a curse word? Have you ever wanted what belongs to someone else? Jesus said that anyone who looks with lust “has already committed adultery … in his heart” (Matthew 5:28), and the Bible says “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15).
If we’re honest, we have all broken God’s Law — and “whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). “There is no one righteous, not even one … there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10–12).
That leaves every one of us guilty before a holy God. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and “whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36). This is why our world is full of tragedy — and without Christ, every life ends in the greatest tragedy of all.
But God made a way
“God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus lived the perfect life we never could, and on the cross He took the punishment we deserved: “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Three days later He rose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).
It’s like standing guilty in court when the judge steps down and pays your fine himself. Forgiveness is a free gift — you can’t earn it: “It is by grace you have been saved through faith … it is the gift of God, not by works” (Ephesians 2:8–9). “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.” Jesus — John 10:10
What will you do with Jesus?
“Repent and believe in the gospel!” (Mark 1:15). Turn from your sin, and put your trust in Jesus alone — “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Don’t put it off — “now is the time of favor; now is the day of salvation!” (2 Corinthians 6:2).
And when you turn to Him, you won’t be met with a frown — you’ll be met with a celebration. Jesus said, “there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). God says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live” (Ezekiel 33:11). He is “mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness … He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). Like the father who ran to embrace his lost son, He is waiting with open arms — and heaven throws a party when you come home (Luke 15:20–24).
If you died today, where would you spend eternity? Today you can be forgiven, made new, and have real, abundant life — now and forever.
Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), which is in the public domain.
