God was also at work in Judah and united the people in their determination to obey his will by following the commands of the king and his officials.

You will give us prosperity, LORD; everything that we achieve is the result of what you do.

The new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel will be this: I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Then they will be my people, and I will be their God.

John answered, "No one can have anything unless God gives it.

The Lord's power was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

There is nothing in us that allows us to claim that we are capable of doing this work. The capacity we have comes from God;

(SEE 13:20)

Do not be deceived, my dear friends!

By his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth, so that we should have first place among all his creatures.

may he make us obedient to him, so that we will always live as he wants us to live, keeping all the laws and commands he gave our ancestors.

"Yet my people and I cannot really give you anything, because everything is a gift from you, and we have only given back what is yours already.

O LORD, our God, we have brought together all this wealth to build a temple to honor your holy name, but it all came from you and all belongs to you.

LORD God of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, keep such devotion forever strong in your people's hearts and keep them always faithful to you.

In the first year that Cyrus of Persia was emperor, the LORD made what he had said through the prophet Jeremiah come true. He prompted Cyrus to issue the following command and send it out in writing to be read aloud everywhere in his empire:

Then the heads of the clans of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and Levites, and everyone else whose heart God had moved got ready to go and rebuild the LORD's Temple in Jerusalem.

Ezra said, "Praise the LORD, the God of our ancestors! He has made the emperor willing to honor in this way the Temple of the LORD in Jerusalem.

The emperor asked, "What is it that you want?" I prayed to the God of Heaven,

On the day you fight your enemies, your people will volunteer. Like the dew of early morning your young men will come to you on the sacred hills.

Give me the desire to obey your laws rather than to get rich.

Keep me from wanting to do wrong and from joining evil people in their wickedness. May I never take part in their feasts.

The LORD controls the mind of a king as easily as he directs the course of a stream.

The prophets wrote, 'Everyone will be taught by God.' Anyone who hears the Father and learns from him comes to me.

And he added, "This is the very reason I told you that no people can come to me unless the Father makes it possible for them to do so."

But God's mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great,

that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved.

We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the first to be saved by the Spirit's power to make you his holy people and by your faith in the truth.

God called you to this through the Good News we preached to you; he called you to possess your share of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior was revealed,

he saved us. It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us, through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth and new life by washing us.

Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy he gave us new life by raising Jesus Christ from death. This fills us with a living hope,

"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom.

But in order that the choice of one son might be completely the result of God's own purpose, God said to her, "The older will serve the younger." He said this before they were born, before they had done anything either good or bad; so God's choice was based on his call, and not on anything they had done.

So then, everything depends, not on what we humans want or do, but only on God's mercy.

God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children---this was his pleasure and purpose.

God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ.

All things are done according to God's plan and decision; and God chose us to be his own people in union with Christ because of his own purpose, based on what he had decided from the very beginning.

For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it.

That is why we always pray for you. We ask our God to make you worthy of the life he has called you to live. May he fulfill by his power all your desire for goodness and complete your work of faith.

He saved us and called us to be his own people, not because of what we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. He gave us this grace by means of Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,