New life and rebirth

¹⁵ And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

¹⁷ Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!

The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

¹⁹ And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh,

²⁰ so that they may follow My statutes, keep My ordinances, and practice them. Then they will be My people, and I will be their God.

¹⁸ “Do not call to mind the former things; pay no attention to the things of old.

¹⁹ Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

For though a righteous man may fall seven times, he still gets up; but the wicked stumble in bad times.

²⁵ I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.

²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

²⁷ And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.

And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

⁴ For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live!

⁵ Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

⁶ Seek the LORD and live, or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph; it will devour everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.

³¹ Cast away from yourselves all the transgressions you have committed, and fashion for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why should you die, O house of Israel?

³² For I take no pleasure in anyone’s death, declares the Lord GOD. So repent and live!

Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’

¹² Therefore prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘O My people, I will open your graves and bring you up from them, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.

¹³ Then you, My people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them.

¹⁴ I will put My Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.’”

³ Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

⁴ “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

⁶ Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.

⁷ Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’

⁸ The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts— the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust — My great army that I sent against you.

²¹ Restore us to Yourself, O LORD, so we may return; renew our days as of old,

²² unless You have utterly rejected us and remain angry with us beyond measure.

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

¹¹ Cast me not away from Your presence; take not Your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit.

¹⁴ But as for me, may I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

¹⁵ For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is a new creation.

² Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?

³ Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

⁴ We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.

⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

⁴ and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you,

³⁴ But at the end of those days I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven, and my sanity was restored to me. Then I praised the Most High, and I honored and glorified Him who lives forever: “For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

³⁵ All the peoples of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does as He pleases with the army of heaven and the peoples of the earth. There is no one who can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

³⁶ At the same time my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne, and surpassing greatness was added to me.

¹⁰ After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his prosperity and doubled his former possessions.

¹¹ All his brothers and sisters and prior acquaintances came and dined with him in his house. They consoled him and comforted him over all the adversity that the LORD had brought upon him. And each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.

¹² So the LORD blessed Job’s latter days more than his first. He owned 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.

For this son of mine was dead and is alive again! He was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.

So I prophesied as He had commanded me, and the breath entered them, and they came to life and stood on their feet—a vast army.

So the people went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man whom the demons had left, sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

But it was fitting to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

You showed favor to Your land, O LORD; You restored Jacob from captivity.

Then I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So a clean turban was placed on his head, and they clothed him, as the angel of the LORD stood by.

¹⁸ At that instant, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and his sight was restored. He got up and was baptized,

¹⁹ and after taking some food, he regained his strength. And he spent several days with the disciples in Damascus.

The next day Moses entered the Tent of the Testimony and saw that Aaron’s staff, representing the house of Levi, had sprouted, put forth buds, blossomed, and produced almonds.

Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.

When the LORD restored the captives of Zion, we were like dreamers.

¹¹ When all the Jews in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and all the other lands heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant in Judah and had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, over them,

¹² they all returned from all the places to which they had been banished and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah at Mizpah. And they gathered an abundance of wine grapes and summer fruit.

So Jehoiachin changed out of his prison clothes, and he dined regularly at the king’s table for the rest of his life.

“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”