God's love

Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

⁶ For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth.

⁷ The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

⁸ But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹ Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.

¹⁶ I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being,

¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love,

¹⁸ will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth

¹⁹ of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

⁶ Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,

⁷ maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

So I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in loving devotion and compassion.

¹ When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.

² But the more I called Israel, the farther they departed from Me. They sacrificed to the Baals and burned incense to carved images.

³ It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them in My arms, but they never realized that it was I who healed them.

⁴ I led them with cords of kindness, with ropes of love; I lifted the yoke from their necks and bent down to feed them.

⁸ How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

⁹ I will not execute the full fury of My anger; I will not turn back to destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not man— the Holy One among you— and I will not come in wrath.

⁴ I will heal their apostasy; I will freely love them, for My anger has turned away from them.

⁵ I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like the lily and take root like the cedars of Lebanon.

¹⁵ “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you!

¹⁶ Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me.

⁵ For your husband is your Maker— the LORD of Hosts is His name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth.

⁶ For the LORD has called you back, like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit, like the rejected wife of one’s youth,” says your God.

⁷ “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will bring you back.

⁸ In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer.

⁹ “For to Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you or rebuke you.

¹⁰ Though the mountains may be removed and the hills may be shaken, My loving devotion will not depart from you, and My covenant of peace will not be broken,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with loving devotion.

Is not Ephraim a precious son to Me, a delightful child? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore My heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the LORD.

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

² So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.

³ And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

⁴ But the LORD replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”

² “I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you ask, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet Jacob I have loved,

³ but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

¹⁸ ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.’

¹⁹ Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people, in keeping with the greatness of Your loving devotion, just as You have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”

⁵ Your loving devotion, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds.

⁶ Your righteousness is like the highest mountains; Your judgments are like the deepest sea. O LORD, You preserve man and beast.

⁷ How precious is Your loving devotion, O God, that the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings!

For Your loving devotion reaches to the heavens, and Your faithfulness to the clouds.

¹³ For great is Your loving devotion to me; You have delivered me from the depths of Sheol.

¹⁴ The arrogant rise against me, O God; a band of ruthless men seeks my life, with no regard for You.

¹⁵ But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.

If I say, “My foot is slipping,” Your loving devotion, O LORD, supports me.

So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

And a voice came from heaven: “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”

²¹ When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as He was praying, heaven was opened,

²² and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in a bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”

‘Son, you are always with me,’ the father said, ‘and all that is mine is yours.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!

And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.

Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”

It was now just before the Passover Feast, and Jesus knew that His hour had come to leave this world and return to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the very end.

When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.

And a voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is My Son, whom I have chosen. Listen to Him!”

As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it

And a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!”

While Peter was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!”

Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him!”

The priests stood at their posts, as did the Levites with the musical instruments of the LORD, which King David had made for giving thanks to the LORD and with which David had offered praise, saying, “For His loving devotion endures forever.” Across from the Levites, the priests sounded trumpets, and all the Israelites were standing.

Yet He has not left Himself without testimony to His goodness: He gives you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.”

²³ At the beginning of your petitions, an answer went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly precious. So consider the message and understand the vision:

²⁴ Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.

“The Lord has done this for me. In these days He has shown me favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

“Here is My Servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved, in whom My soul delights. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will proclaim justice to the nations.