Psalm 124 (Listen)

Our Help Is in the Name of the Lord

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

124   If it had not been the LORD who was on our side—
    let Israel now say—
2   if it had not been the LORD who was on our side
    when people rose up against us,
3   then they would have swallowed us up alive,
    when their anger was kindled against us;
4   then the flood would have swept us away,
    the torrent would have gone over us;
5   then over us would have gone
    the raging waters.
6   Blessed be the LORD,
    who has not given us
    as prey to their teeth!
7   We have escaped like a bird
    from the snare of the fowlers;
  the snare is broken,
    and we have escaped!
8   Our help is in the name of the LORD,
    who made heaven and earth.

(ESV)

Job 9–10 (Listen)

Job Replies: There Is No Arbiter

9 Then Job answered and said:

2   “Truly I know that it is so:
    But how can a man be in the right before God?
3   If one wished to contend with him,
    one could not answer him once in a thousand times.
4   He is wise in heart and mighty in strength
    —who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—
5   he who removes mountains, and they know it not,
    when he overturns them in his anger,
6   who shakes the earth out of its place,
    and its pillars tremble;
7   who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
    who seals up the stars;
8   who alone stretched out the heavens
    and trampled the waves of the sea;
9   who made the Bear and Orion,
    the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
10   who does great things beyond searching out,
    and marvelous things beyond number.
11   Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not;
    he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
12   Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back?
    Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’
13   “God will not turn back his anger;
    beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.
14   How then can I answer him,
    choosing my words with him?
15   Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him;
    I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.¹
16   If I summoned him and he answered me,
    I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.
17   For he crushes me with a tempest
    and multiplies my wounds without cause;
18   he will not let me get my breath,
    but fills me with bitterness.
19   If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!
    If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?²
20   Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me;
    though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.
21   I am blameless; I regard not myself;
    I loathe my life.
22   It is all one; therefore I say,
    ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
23   When disaster brings sudden death,
    he mocks at the calamity³ of the innocent.
24   The earth is given into the hand of the wicked;
    he covers the faces of its judges—
    if it is not he, who then is it?
25   “My days are swifter than a runner;
    they flee away; they see no good.
26   They go by like skiffs of reed,
    like an eagle swooping on the prey.
27   If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,
    I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’
28   I become afraid of all my suffering,
    for I know you will not hold me innocent.
29   I shall be condemned;
    why then do I labor in vain?
30   If I wash myself with snow
    and cleanse my hands with lye,
31   yet you will plunge me into a pit,
    and my own clothes will abhor me.
32   For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,
    that we should come to trial together.
33   There is no⁴ arbiter between us,
    who might lay his hand on us both.
34   Let him take his rod away from me,
    and let not dread of him terrify me.
35   Then I would speak without fear of him,
    for I am not so in myself.

Job Continues: A Plea to God

10   “I loathe my life;
  I will give free utterance to my complaint;
    I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
2   I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
    let me know why you contend against me.
3   Does it seem good to you to oppress,
    to despise the work of your hands
    and favor the designs of the wicked?
4   Have you eyes of flesh?
    Do you see as man sees?
5   Are your days as the days of man,
    or your years as a man’s years,
6   that you seek out my iniquity
    and search for my sin,
7   although you know that I am not guilty,
    and there is none to deliver out of your hand?
8   Your hands fashioned and made me,
    and now you have destroyed me altogether.
9   Remember that you have made me like clay;
    and will you return me to the dust?
10   Did you not pour me out like milk
    and curdle me like cheese?
11   You clothed me with skin and flesh,
    and knit me together with bones and sinews.
12   You have granted me life and steadfast love,
    and your care has preserved my spirit.
13   Yet these things you hid in your heart;
    I know that this was your purpose.
14   If I sin, you watch me
    and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
15   If I am guilty, woe to me!
    If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head,
  for I am filled with disgrace
    and look on my affliction.
16   And were my head lifted up,⁵ you would hunt me like a lion
    and again work wonders against me.
17   You renew your witnesses against me
    and increase your vexation toward me;
    you bring fresh troops against me.
18   “Why did you bring me out from the womb?
    Would that I had died before any eye had seen me
19   and were as though I had not been,
    carried from the womb to the grave.
20   Are not my days few?
    Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer
21   before I go—and I shall not return—
    to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
22   the land of gloom like thick darkness,
    like deep shadow without any order,
    where light is as thick darkness.”

(ESV)

Isaiah 29–30:17 (Listen)

The Siege of Jerusalem

29   Ah, Ariel, Ariel,
    the city where David encamped!
  Add year to year;
    let the feasts run their round.
2   Yet I will distress Ariel,
    and there shall be moaning and lamentation,
    and she shall be to me like an Ariel.¹
3   And I will encamp against you all around,
    and will besiege you with towers
    and I will raise siegeworks against you.
4   And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,
    and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;
  your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,
    and from the dust your speech shall whisper.
5   But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust,
    and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff.
  And in an instant, suddenly,
6     you will be visited by the LORD of hosts
  with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,
    with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
7   And the multitude of all the nations that fight against Ariel,
    all that fight against her and her stronghold and distress her,
    shall be like a dream, a vision of the night.
8   As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he is eating,
    and awakes with his hunger not satisfied,
  or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he is drinking,
    and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched,
  so shall the multitude of all the nations be
    that fight against Mount Zion.
9   Astonish yourselves² and be astonished;
    blind yourselves and be blind!
  Be drunk,³ but not with wine;
    stagger,⁴ but not with strong drink!
10   For the LORD has poured out upon you
    a spirit of deep sleep,
  and has closed your eyes (the prophets),
    and covered your heads (the seers).

11 And the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. When men give it to one who can read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” 12 And when they give the book to one who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” he says, “I cannot read.”

13   And the Lord said:
  “Because this people draw near with their mouth
    and honor me with their lips,
    while their hearts are far from me,
  and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
14   therefore, behold, I will again
    do wonderful things with this people,
    with wonder upon wonder;
  and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
    and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden.”
15   Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel,
    whose deeds are in the dark,
    and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”
16   You turn things upside down!
  Shall the potter be regarded as the clay,
  that the thing made should say of its maker,
    “He did not make me”;
  or the thing formed say of him who formed it,
    “He has no understanding”?
17   Is it not yet a very little while
    until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,
    and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest?
18   In that day the deaf shall hear
    the words of a book,
  and out of their gloom and darkness
    the eyes of the blind shall see.
19   The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD,
    and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.
20   For the ruthless shall come to nothing
    and the scoffer cease,
    and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off,
21   who by a word make a man out to be an offender,
    and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate,
    and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.

22 Therefore thus says the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:

  “Jacob shall no more be ashamed,
    no more shall his face grow pale.
23   For when he sees his children,
    the work of my hands, in his midst,
    they will sanctify my name;
  they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob
    and will stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24   And those who go astray in spirit will come to understanding,
    and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

Do Not Go Down to Egypt

30   “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the LORD,
  “who carry out a plan, but not mine,
  and who make an alliance,⁵ but not of my Spirit,
    that they may add sin to sin;
2   who set out to go down to Egypt,
    without asking for my direction,
  to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh
    and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!
3   Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame,
    and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.
4   For though his officials are at Zoan
    and his envoys reach Hanes,
5   everyone comes to shame
    through a people that cannot profit them,
  that brings neither help nor profit,
    but shame and disgrace.”

6 An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb.

  Through a land of trouble and anguish,
    from where come the lioness and the lion,
    the adder and the flying fiery serpent,
  they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys,
    and their treasures on the humps of camels,
    to a people that cannot profit them.
7   Egypt’s help is worthless and empty;
    therefore I have called her
    “Rahab who sits still.”

A Rebellious People

8   And now, go, write it before them on a tablet
    and inscribe it in a book,
  that it may be for the time to come
    as a witness forever.⁶
9   For they are a rebellious people,
    lying children,
  children unwilling to hear
    the instruction of the LORD;
10   who say to the seers, “Do not see,”
    and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right;
  speak to us smooth things,
    prophesy illusions,
11   leave the way, turn aside from the path,
    let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
12   Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel,
  “Because you despise this word
    and trust in oppression and perverseness
    and rely on them,
13   therefore this iniquity shall be to you
    like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse,
    whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant;
14   and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel
    that is smashed so ruthlessly
  that among its fragments not a shard is found
    with which to take fire from the hearth,
    or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
15   For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel,
  “In returning⁷ and rest you shall be saved;
    in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
  But you were unwilling, 16 and you said,
  “No! We will flee upon horses”;
    therefore you shall flee away;
  and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”;
    therefore your pursuers shall be swift.
17   A thousand shall flee at the threat of one;
    at the threat of five you shall flee,
  till you are left
    like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
    like a signal on a hill.

(ESV)

1 John 2:18–3:3 (Listen)

Warning Concerning Antichrists

18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.¹ 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us²—eternal life.

26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 27 But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

Children of God

28 And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears³ we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

(ESV)