"I will make the people of Judah strong; I will rescue the people of Israel. I will have compassion on them and bring them all back home. They will be as though I had never rejected them. I am the LORD their God; I will answer their prayers.

Then the clans of Judah will say to themselves, 'The LORD God Almighty gives strength to his people who live in Jerusalem.'

Proclaim God's power; his majesty is over Israel, his might is in the skies.

How awesome is God as he comes from his sanctuary--- the God of Israel! He gives strength and power to his people. Praise God!

Do not be afraid---I am with you! I am your God---let nothing terrify you! I will make you strong and help you; I will protect you and save you.

"They will say that only through me are victory and strength to be found; but all who hate me will suffer disgrace.

Finally, build up your strength in union with the Lord and by means of his mighty power.

I have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gives me.

As for you, my son, be strong through the grace that is ours in union with Christ Jesus.

He spent his life in fellowship with God, and then he disappeared, because God took him away.

He answered, 'The LORD, whom I have always obeyed, will send his angel with you and give you success. You will get for my son a wife from my own people, from my father's family.

Now, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light which the LORD gives us!

Each nation worships and obeys its own god, but we will worship and obey the LORD our God forever and ever.

Since you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, live in union with him.

Everything you do or say, then, should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks through him to God the Father.

We encouraged you, we comforted you, and we kept urging you to live the kind of life that pleases God, who calls you to share in his own Kingdom and glory.

Finally, our friends, you learned from us how you should live in order to please God. This is, of course, the way you have been living. And now we beg and urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to do even more.

If, then, we say that we have fellowship with him, yet at the same time live in the darkness, we are lying both in our words and in our actions.

But if we live in the light---just as he is in the light---then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin.