Bibleseplan — M’Cheyne ein Jahr

Called from Slaves to Sons

¹What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he is the owner of everything.

²He is subject to guardians and trustees until the date set by his father.

³So also, when we were children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world.

⁴But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

⁵to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons.

⁶And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

⁷So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.

Do Not Turn Back to Weak Elemental Principles

⁸Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

⁹But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

¹⁰You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!

¹¹I fear for you, that my efforts for you may have been in vain.

Paul's Heartfelt Appeal to the Galatians

¹²I beg you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong.

¹³You know that it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you.

¹⁴And although my illness was a trial to you, you did not despise or reject me. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus Himself.

¹⁵What then has become of your blessing? For I can testify that, if it were possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.

¹⁶Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?

¹⁷Those people are zealous for you, but not in a good way. Instead, they want to isolate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them.

¹⁸Nevertheless, it is good to be zealous if it serves a noble purpose—at any time, and not only when I am with you.

¹⁹My children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,

²⁰how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you.

Hagar and Sarah, an Allegory of Two Covenants

²¹Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not understand what the law says?

²²For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman.

²³His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born through the promise.

²⁴These things serve as illustrations, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery: This is Hagar.

²⁵Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.

²⁶But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

²⁷For it is written:

²⁸Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.

²⁹At that time, however, the son born by the flesh persecuted the son born by the Spirit. It is the same now.

³⁰But what does the Scripture say? “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”

³¹Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Egypt Likened to a Cedar of Lebanon

¹In the eleventh year, on the first day of the third month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

²“Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude:

³Look at Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon,

⁴The waters made it grow;

⁵Therefore it towered higher

⁶All the birds of the air

⁷It was beautiful in its greatness,

⁸The cedars in the garden of God

⁹I made it beautiful with its many branches,

The Cedar Cut Down and Brought to Sheol

¹⁰Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Since it became great in height and set its top among the clouds, and it grew proud on account of its height,

¹¹I delivered it into the hand of the ruler of the nations, for him to deal with it according to its wickedness. I have banished it.

¹²Foreigners, the most ruthless of the nations, cut it down and left it. Its branches have fallen on the mountains and in every valley; its boughs lay broken in all the earth’s ravines. And all the peoples of the earth left its shade and abandoned it.

¹³All the birds of the air nested on its fallen trunk, and all the beasts of the field lived among its boughs.

¹⁴This happened so that no other trees by the waters would become great in height and set their tops among the clouds, and no other well-watered trees would reach them in height. For they have all been consigned to death, to the depths of the earth, among the mortals who descend to the Pit.’

¹⁵This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘On the day it was brought down to Sheol, I caused mourning. I covered the deep because of it; I held back its rivers; its abundant waters were restrained. I made Lebanon mourn for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it.

¹⁶I made the nations quake at the sound of its downfall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who descend to the Pit.

¹⁷They too descended with it to Sheol, to those slain by the sword. As its allies they had lived in its shade among the nations.

¹⁸Who then is like you in glory and greatness among the trees of Eden? You also will be brought down to the depths of the earth to be with the trees of Eden. You will lie among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Lord GOD.’”

A Lament over the Defiled Temple

¹The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance;

²They have given the corpses of Your servants

³They have poured out their blood like water

⁴We have become a reproach to our neighbors,

⁵How long, O LORD?

⁶Pour out Your wrath on the nations

⁷for they have devoured Jacob

⁸Do not hold past sins against us;

⁹Help us, O God of our salvation,

¹⁰Why should the nations ask,

¹¹May the groans of the captives reach You;

¹²Pay back into the laps of our neighbors

¹³Then we Your people, the sheep of Your pasture,