Psalm 141 (Listen)

Give Ear to My Voice

A Psalm of David.

141   O LORD, I call upon you; hasten to me!
    Give ear to my voice when I call to you!
2   Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
    and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!
3   Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;
    keep watch over the door of my lips!
4   Do not let my heart incline to any evil,
    to busy myself with wicked deeds
  in company with men who work iniquity,
    and let me not eat of their delicacies!
5   Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;
    let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head;
    let my head not refuse it.
  Yet my prayer is continually against their evil deeds.
6   When their judges are thrown over the cliff,¹
    then they shall hear my words, for they are pleasant.
7   As when one plows and breaks up the earth,
    so shall our bones be scattered at the mouth of Sheol.²
8   But my eyes are toward you, O GOD, my Lord;
    in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless!³
9   Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me
    and from the snares of evildoers!
10   Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
    while I pass by safely.

(ESV)

Job 30 (Listen)

30   “But now they laugh at me,
    men who are younger than I,
  whose fathers I would have disdained
    to set with the dogs of my flock.
2   What could I gain from the strength of their hands,
    men whose vigor is gone?
3   Through want and hard hunger
    they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;
4   they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes,
    and the roots of the broom tree for their food.¹
5   They are driven out from human company;
    they shout after them as after a thief.
6   In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell,
    in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
7   Among the bushes they bray;
    under the nettles they huddle together.
8   A senseless, a nameless brood,
    they have been whipped out of the land.
9   “And now I have become their song;
    I am a byword to them.
10   They abhor me; they keep aloof from me;
    they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.
11   Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,
    they have cast off restraint² in my presence.
12   On my right hand the rabble rise;
    they push away my feet;
    they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
13   They break up my path;
    they promote my calamity;
    they need no one to help them.
14   As through a wide breach they come;
    amid the crash they roll on.
15   Terrors are turned upon me;
    my honor is pursued as by the wind,
    and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.
16   “And now my soul is poured out within me;
    days of affliction have taken hold of me.
17   The night racks my bones,
    and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
18   With great force my garment is disfigured;
    it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
19   God³ has cast me into the mire,
    and I have become like dust and ashes.
20   I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
    I stand, and you only look at me.
21   You have turned cruel to me;
    with the might of your hand you persecute me.
22   You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
    and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
23   For I know that you will bring me to death
    and to the house appointed for all living.
24   “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand,
    and in his disaster cry for help?⁴
25   Did not I weep for him whose day was hard?
    Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
26   But when I hoped for good, evil came,
    and when I waited for light, darkness came.
27   My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
    days of affliction come to meet me.
28   I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
    I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
29   I am a brother of jackals
    and a companion of ostriches.
30   My skin turns black and falls from me,
    and my bones burn with heat.
31   My lyre is turned to mourning,
    and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.

(ESV)

Isaiah 52:13–53:12 (Listen)

He Was Pierced for Our Transgressions

13   Behold, my servant shall act wisely;¹
    he shall be high and lifted up,
    and shall be exalted.
14   As many were astonished at you—
    his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
    and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
15   so shall he sprinkle² many nations.
    Kings shall shut their mouths because of him,
  for that which has not been told them they see,
    and that which they have not heard they understand.
53   Who has believed what he has heard from us?³
    And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2   For he grew up before him like a young plant,
    and like a root out of dry ground;
  he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
    and no beauty that we should desire him.
3   He was despised and rejected⁴ by men,
    a man of sorrows⁵ and acquainted with⁶ grief;⁷
  and as one from whom men hide their faces⁸
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4   Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
  yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
5   But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
  upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
6   All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
  and the LORD has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.
7   He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he opened not his mouth;
  like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so he opened not his mouth.
8   By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
    and as for his generation, who considered
  that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
    stricken for the transgression of my people?
9   And they made his grave with the wicked
    and with a rich man in his death,
  although he had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10   Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
    he has put him to grief;⁹
  when his soul makes¹⁰ an offering for guilt,
    he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
  the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11   Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see¹¹ and be satisfied;
  by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
    make many to be accounted righteous,
    and he shall bear their iniquities.
12   Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,¹²
    and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,¹³
  because he poured out his soul to death
    and was numbered with the transgressors;
  yet he bore the sin of many,
    and makes intercession for the transgressors.

(ESV)

Revelation 12 (Listen)

The Woman and the Dragon

12 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule¹ all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

Satan Thrown Down to Earth

7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers² has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. 15 The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. 17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood³ on the sand of the sea.

(ESV)