Psalm 106

¹⁸Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

³⁴Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.

¹Give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; make known His deeds among the nations.

¹Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His loving devotion endures forever.

¹¹the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the Lord, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord of Hosts, for the Lord is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the Lord.

¹Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.

¹⁹and the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength,

³³O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!

³Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; His greatness is unsearchable.

⁴One generation will commend Your works to the next, and will proclaim Your mighty acts—

¹⁷How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God, how vast is their sum!

¹⁸If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You.

¹⁴Indeed, these are but the fringes of His ways; how faint is the whisper we hear of Him! Who then can understand the thunder of His power?”

⁵Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders You have done, and the plans You have for us—none can compare to You—if I proclaim and declare them, they are more than I can count.

²He who walks with integrity and practices righteousness, who speaks the truth from his heart,

²⁵But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom, and continues to do so—not being a forgetful hearer, but an effective doer—he will be blessed in what he does.

⁹Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

¹⁴You are My friends if you do what I command you.

¹⁷If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

¹⁴Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by its gates.

¹³²Turn to me and show me mercy, as You do to those who love Your name.

⁴²Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!”

¹⁴Remember me for this, O my God, and do not blot out my deeds of loving devotion for the house of my God and for its services.

⁷Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my rebellious acts; remember me according to Your loving devotion, because of Your goodness, O Lord.

³¹I also arranged for contributions of wood at the appointed times, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, with favor.

²²Then I instructed the Levites to purify themselves and guard the gates in order to keep the Sabbath day holy. Remember me for this as well, O my God, and show me mercy according to Your abundant loving devotion.

¹⁶You did not choose Me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will remain—so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.

⁴³He brought forth His people with rejoicing, His chosen with shouts of joy.

⁹Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your King comes to you, righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

¹⁰Be glad for Jerusalem and rejoice over her, all who love her. Rejoice greatly with her, all who mourn over her,

⁶O offspring of His servant Abraham, O sons of Jacob, His chosen ones.

³He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.

¹⁶But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments.

⁸Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

⁶and said: “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, because our iniquities are higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached the heavens.

⁷From the days of our fathers to this day, our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities, we and our kings and priests have been delivered into the hands of the kings of the earth and subjected to the sword and to captivity, to pillage and humiliation, as we are this day.

⁴⁷and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’

³²So now, our God, the great and mighty and awesome God who keeps His gracious covenant, do not view lightly all the hardship that has come upon us, and upon our kings and leaders, our priests and prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today.

³³You are just in all that has befallen us, because You have acted faithfully, while we have acted wickedly.

⁴⁰But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—

¹¹They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us into the wilderness to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?

¹²Did we not say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone so that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

⁴²They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

²²“How long, O simple ones, will you love your simple ways? How long will scoffers delight in their scorn and fools hate knowledge?

¹⁰and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.

¹¹For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie,

¹¹They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

⁴⁵And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.

¹⁶But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power to you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

⁹But I acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the eyes of the nations among whom they were living, in whose sight I had revealed Myself to Israel by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

¹⁴But I acted for the sake of My name, so that it would not be profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

⁴⁴Then you will know, O house of Israel, that I am the Lord, when I have dealt with you for the sake of My name and not according to your wicked ways and corrupt acts, declares the Lord God.”

²²But I withheld My hand and acted for the sake of My name, so that it would not be profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

¹⁵The channels of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the world were exposed, at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.

¹³He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

¹¹Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them,

¹²who sent His glorious arm to lead them by the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to gain for Himself everlasting renown,

¹⁰Was it not You who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea for the redeemed to cross over?

⁴He rebukes the sea and dries it up; He makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither, and the flower of Lebanon wilts.

²⁷So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea returned to its normal state. As the Egyptians were retreating, the Lord swept them into the sea.

²⁸The waters flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had chased the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

³⁰That day the Lord saved Israel from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the shore.

²Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy

⁴For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery. I sent Moses before you, as well as Aaron and Miriam.

²⁴and freed us from our enemies. His loving devotion endures forever.

²²Have I ever said, ‘Give me something; offer me a bribe from your wealth;

²³deliver me from the hand of the enemy; redeem me from the grasp of the ruthless’?

¹³With loving devotion You will lead the people You have redeemed; with Your strength You will guide them to Your holy dwelling.

⁵The depths have covered them; they sank there like a stone.

¹³But Moses told the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the Lord’s salvation, which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.

⁵³He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.

²⁷So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea returned to its normal state. As the Egyptians were retreating, the Lord swept them into the sea.

²⁸The waters flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had chased the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

¹⁹For when Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them. But the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.

¹⁰But You blew with Your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

³¹When Israel saw the great power that the Lord had exercised over the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in Him and in His servant Moses.

¹³The seeds on rocky ground are those who hear the word and receive it with joy, but they have no root. They believe for a season, but in the time of testing, they fall away.

³⁰As Jesus spoke these things, many believed in Him.

³¹So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples.

¹¹They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

²⁴So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

¹⁷Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your benefit, who directs you in the way you should go.

¹⁸If only you had paid attention to My commandments, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like waves of the sea.

²And there in the desert the whole congregation of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

¹¹because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High.

²⁵because you neglected all my counsel, and wanted none of my correction,

⁹We should not test Christ, as some of them did, and were killed by snakes.

⁶These things took place as examples to keep us from craving evil things as they did.

⁴Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the Israelites wept and said, “Who will feed us meat?

²So the people contended with Moses, “Give us water to drink.” “Why do you contend with me?” Moses replied. “Why do you test the Lord?”

⁸do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness,

⁹where your fathers tested and tried Me, and for forty years saw My works.

¹⁸They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

¹⁹They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

³¹Now a wind sent by the Lord came up, drove in quail from the sea, and brought them near the camp, about two cubits above the surface of the ground, for a day’s journey in every direction around the camp.

³²All that day and night, and all the next day, the people stayed up gathering the quail. No one gathered less than ten homers, and they spread them out all around the camp.

¹⁶Therefore the Lord God of Hosts will send a wasting disease among Assyria’s stout warriors, and under his pomp will be kindled a fire like a burning flame.

²⁹So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

³⁰Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

¹⁶From the ends of the earth we hear singing: “Glory to the Righteous One.” But I said, “I am wasting away! I am wasting away! Woe is me.” The treacherous betray; the treacherous deal in treachery.

¹Now Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath son of Levi, along with some Reubenites—Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—conducted

²a rebellion against Moses, along with 250 men of Israel renowned as leaders of the congregation and representatives in the assembly.

¹⁰The priest who is highest among his brothers, who has had the anointing oil poured on his head and has been ordained to wear the priestly garments, must not let his hair hang loose or tear his garments.

¹¹He must not go near any dead body; he must not defile himself, even for his father or mother.

³⁶You are to make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it as on a seal: HOLY TO THE Lord.

⁶They must be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God. Because they present to the Lord the food offerings, the food of their God, they must be holy.

⁷A priest must not marry a woman defiled by prostitution or divorced by her husband, for the priest is holy to his God.

⁶and what He did in the midst of all the Israelites to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that belonged to them.

¹⁰And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them along with Korah, whose followers died when the fire consumed 250 men. They serve as a warning sign.

²⁹If these men die a natural death, or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me.

³⁰But if the Lord brings about something unprecedented, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them and all that belongs to them so that they go down alive into Sheol, then you will know that these men have treated the Lord with contempt.”

³⁵And fire came forth from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.

³⁶Then the Lord said to Moses,

²⁹“For our God is a consuming fire.”

⁴⁶Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, place fire from the altar in it, and add incense. Go quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, because wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has begun.”

³⁵And the Lord sent a plague on the people because of what they had done with the calf that Aaron had made.

⁴He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before the calf and proclaimed: “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.”

¹²And the Lord said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.”

¹³The Lord also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.

⁸At Horeb you provoked the Lord, and He was angry enough to destroy you.

⁷Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”

¹⁸Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies,

¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.

²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,

²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

⁴You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath.

⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

¹⁷For You are the glory of their strength, and by Your favor our horn is exalted.

¹⁸To whom will you liken God? To what image will you compare Him?

¹⁹To an idol that a craftsman casts and a metalworker overlays with gold and fits with silver chains?

⁴²They did not remember His power—the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

⁴³when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

³²Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number.

¹³Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear.

¹⁸You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth.

¹¹They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

¹²He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

⁹He sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants.

²³Then Israel entered Egypt; Jacob dwelt in the land of Ham.

⁵¹He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.

²⁵He caused their chariot wheels to wobble, so that they had difficulty driving. “Let us flee from the Israelites,” said the Egyptians, “for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt!”

²⁶Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.”

²⁷They performed His miraculous signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham.

²⁸He sent darkness, and it became dark—yet they defied His words.

¹⁰But You blew with Your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

²⁵So I fell down before the Lord for forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said He would destroy you.

¹³The Lord also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.

¹⁴Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they are.”

¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.

³⁰I searched for a man among them to repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, so that I should not destroy it. But I found no one.

⁵Then he said to Korah and all his followers, “Tomorrow morning the Lord will reveal who belongs to Him and who is holy, and He will bring that person near to Himself. The one He chooses He will bring near to Himself.

¹⁸“Here is My Servant, whom I have chosen, My beloved, in whom My soul delights. I will put My Spirit on Him, and He will proclaim justice to the nations.

³²But in spite of all this, you did not trust the Lord your God,

⁶On that day I swore to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands.

¹⁸And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed?

¹⁹So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter.

³¹But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.

⁶Since, then, it remains for some to enter His rest, and since those who formerly heard the good news did not enter because of their disobedience,

⁵But they paid no attention and went away, one to his field, another to his business.

²²not one of the men who have seen My glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness—yet have tested Me and disobeyed Me these ten times—

¹⁵As it has been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion.”

²⁶But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.

²⁷You grumbled in your tents and said, “Because the Lord hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to be annihilated.

⁷For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the sheep under His care. Today, if you hear His voice,

⁸do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness,

⁷Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice,

⁸do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness,

¹Then the whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and that night the people wept.

²All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness!

¹⁵Moreover, with an uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would not bring them into the land that I had given them—a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands—

²⁸So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.

²⁹Your bodies will fall in this wilderness—all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older—because you have grumbled against Me.

¹¹So I swore on oath in My anger, “They shall never enter My rest.”

¹¹So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’”

³⁴When the Lord heard your words, He grew angry and swore an oath, saying,

³⁵“Not one of the men of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your fathers,

¹⁸And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed?

³³But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.

¹¹You have given us up as sheep to be devoured; You have scattered us among the nations.

²³However, with an uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the lands.

⁶⁴Then the Lord will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.

⁶⁵Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

³⁷You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

²⁶I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it, but will be utterly destroyed.

²⁷Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

¹⁰I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the firstfruits of the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to Shame; so they became as detestable as the thing they loved.

⁵So Moses told the judges of Israel, “Each of you must kill all of his men who have joined in worshiping Baal of Peor.”

¹While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab,

²who also invited them to the sacrifices for their gods. And the people ate and bowed down to these gods.

¹⁹Am I suggesting, then, that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything?

²⁰No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to be participants with demons.

³Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal-peor, for the Lord your God destroyed from among you all who followed Baal of Peor.

⁸But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!

⁹Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz—the work of a craftsman from the hands of a goldsmith. Their clothes are blue and purple, all fashioned by skilled workers.

⁸We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.

¹⁶They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear.

²⁹Only this have I found: I have discovered that God made mankind upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”

³⁹They defiled themselves by their actions and prostituted themselves by their deeds.

⁸O Lord our God, You answered them. You were a forgiving God to them, yet an avenger of their misdeeds.

²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts.

²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,

⁶Just then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and the whole congregation of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

⁷On seeing this, Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, got up from the assembly, took a spear in his hand,

¹²This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They will turn their backs and run from their enemies, because they themselves have been set apart for destruction. I will no longer be with you unless you remove from among you whatever is devoted to destruction.

¹⁴The name of the Israelite who was slain with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family.

¹⁵And the name of the slain Midianite woman was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

⁴⁰Then Elijah ordered them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let a single one escape.” So they seized them, and Elijah brought them down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered them there.

⁴¹And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.”

¹²“Pick me up,” he answered, “and cast me into the sea, so it may quiet down for you. For I know that I am to blame for this violent storm that has come upon you.”

¹³Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea was raging against them more and more.

⁹Instead, you must surely kill him. Your hand must be the first against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people.

¹⁰Stone him to death for trying to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

¹¹“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned My wrath away from the Israelites; for he was zealous for My sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in My zeal.

¹²Declare, therefore, that I am granting him My covenant of peace.

³While Jesus was in Bethany reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke open the jar and poured it on Jesus’ head.

⁴Some of those present, however, expressed their indignation to one another: “Why this waste of perfume?

⁶Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

¹³be sure to return it to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and this will be credited to you as righteousness before the Lord your God.

²Now there was no water for the congregation, so they gathered against Moses and Aaron.

³The people quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had perished with our brothers before the Lord!

²¹The Lord, however, was angry with me on account of you, and He swore that I would not cross the Jordan to enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

²³And at Mount Hor, near the border of the land of Edom, the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²⁴“Aaron will be gathered to his people; he will not enter the land that I have given the Israelites, because both of you rebelled against My command at the waters of Meribah.

⁷You called out in distress, and I rescued you; I answered you from the cloud of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

³⁷The Lord was also angry with me on your account, and He said, “Not even you shall enter the land.

²⁶But the Lord was angry with me on account of you, and He would not listen to me. “That is enough,” the Lord said to me. “Do not speak to Me again about this matter.

¹⁰Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly in front of the rock, and Moses said to them, “Listen now, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?”

¹¹Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff, so that a great amount of water gushed out, and the congregation and their livestock were able to drink.

⁴⁰How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

¹¹because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High.

²We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to control his whole body.

¹For the choirmaster. For Jeduthun. A Psalm of David. I said, “I will watch my ways so that I will not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle as long as the wicked are present.”

¹⁰“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

²and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.

¹⁶You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God will deliver to you. Do not look on them with pity. Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

²¹The Benjamites, however, failed to drive out the Jebusites living in Jerusalem. So to this day the Jebusites live there among the Benjamites.

¹²For if you turn away and cling to the rest of these nations that remain among you, and if you intermarry and associate with them,

¹³know for sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become for you a snare and a trap, a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the Lord your God has given you.

⁵⁵But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides; they will harass you in the land where you settle.

⁵⁶And then I will do to you what I had planned to do to them.”

¹⁹Afterward the disciples came to Jesus privately and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

²⁰“Because you have so little faith,” He answered. “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

⁵Thus the Israelites continued to live among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

⁶And they took the daughters of these people in marriage, gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.

³³Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

⁶Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven works through the whole batch of dough?

²and you are not to make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall tear down their altars.’ Yet you have not obeyed My voice. What is this you have done?

³So now I tell you that I will not drive out these people before you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”

²⁷At that time Manasseh failed to drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, Megiddo, and their villages; for the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land.

²⁸When Israel became stronger, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor, but they never drove them out completely.

⁶For You have abandoned Your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with influences from the east; they are soothsayers like the Philistines; they strike hands with the children of foreigners.

¹⁶You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God will deliver to you. Do not look on them with pity. Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

³So now I tell you that I will not drive out these people before you; they will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.”

³³They must not remain in your land, lest they cause you to sin against Me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

¹²Thus they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed after various gods of the peoples around them. They bowed down to them and provoked the Lord to anger,

¹³for they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

⁵⁸They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

¹⁹But when the judge died, the Israelites became even more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods to serve them and bow down to them. They would not give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

¹⁷They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire and practiced divination and soothsaying. They devoted themselves to doing evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.

³Instead, he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

³¹They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear.

³⁷For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have even sacrificed their children, whom they bore to Me, in the fire as food for their idols.

³⁰be careful not to be ensnared by their ways after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, asking, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.”

³¹You must not worship the Lord your God in this way, because they practice for their gods every abomination which the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

³³Do not pollute the land where you live, for bloodshed pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land on which the blood is shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

¹⁶Moreover, Manasseh shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end, in addition to the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

²¹For behold, the Lord is coming out of His dwelling to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth will reveal her bloodshed and will no longer conceal her slain.

⁹So you shall purge from among you the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

³⁴Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things

¹⁵When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.

¹⁸In the wilderness I said to their children: ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers or keep their ordinances or defile yourselves with their idols.

³⁹These will serve as tassels for you to look at, so that you may remember all the commandments of the Lord, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by following your own heart and your own eyes.

⁷They must no longer offer their sacrifices to the goat demons to which they have prostituted themselves. This will be a permanent statute for them for the generations to come.’

¹Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations, for you have played the harlot against your God; you have made love for hire on every threshing floor.

⁵The earth is defiled by its people; they have transgressed the laws; they have overstepped the decrees and broken the everlasting covenant.

⁶Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.

³⁰Therefore tell the house of Israel that this is what the Lord God says: Will you defile yourselves the way your fathers did, prostituting yourselves with their abominations?

³¹When you offer your gifts, sacrificing your sons in the fire, you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. So should I be consulted by you, O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the Lord God, I will not be consulted by you!

¹⁴Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.

²⁹But they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and outstretched arm.”

⁸Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram-naharaim, and the Israelites served him eight years.

¹⁹When the Lord saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.

²⁰So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed the covenant I laid down for their fathers and has not heeded My voice,

⁸And in one month I dismissed three shepherds. My soul grew impatient with the flock, and their souls also detested me.

²⁷So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

²⁸But as soon as they had rest, they again did evil in Your sight. So You abandoned them to the hands of their enemies, who had dominion over them. When they cried out to You again, You heard from heaven, and You delivered them many times in Your compassion.

¹⁴Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of those who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist.

⁸Then the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He sold them into the hand of Cushan-rishathaim king of Aram-naharaim, and the Israelites served him eight years.

¹After Ehud died, the Israelites again did evil in the sight of the Lord.

²So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his forces was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.

¹²Once again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord. So He gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.

²⁵The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹²Sidonians, Amalekites, and Maonites oppressed you and you cried out to Me, did I not save you from their hands?

³Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, because Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and he had harshly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

¹²So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.

¹⁶Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them from the hands of those who plundered them.

¹⁷Israel, however, did not listen to their judges. Instead, they prostituted themselves with other gods and bowed down to them. They quickly turned from the way of their fathers, who had walked in obedience to the Lord’s commandments; they did not do as their fathers had done.

¹Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.

⁹But they forgot the Lord their God, and He sold them into the hand of Sisera the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Moab, who fought against them.

¹⁰Then they cried out to the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and Ashtoreths. Now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, that we may serve You.’

²⁹So they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them.

¹⁹And no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, “The Hebrews must not be allowed to make swords or spears.”

⁹But when the Israelites cried out to the Lord, He raised up Othniel son of Caleb’s younger brother Kenaz as a deliverer to save them.

³Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, because Jabin had nine hundred chariots of iron, and he had harshly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years.

²⁷So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

²⁸But as soon as they had rest, they again did evil in Your sight. So You abandoned them to the hands of their enemies, who had dominion over them. When they cried out to You again, You heard from heaven, and You delivered them many times in Your compassion.

⁶Israel was greatly impoverished by Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the Lord.

⁷Now when the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian,

¹⁸Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning under those who oppressed them and afflicted them.

⁸and said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that He may save us from the hand of the Philistines.”

⁹Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord on behalf of Israel, and the Lord answered him.

⁸He remembers His covenant forever, the word He ordained for a thousand generations—

²³But the Lord was gracious to Israel and had compassion on them, and He turned toward them because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And to this day, the Lord has been unwilling to destroy them or cast them from His presence.

¹⁸Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning under those who oppressed them and afflicted them.

³²Even if He causes grief, He will show compassion according to His abundant loving devotion.

¹⁴So the Lord relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.

⁷I will make known the Lord’s loving devotion and His praiseworthy acts, because of all that the Lord has done for us—the many good things for the house of Israel according to His great compassion and loving devotion.

⁹Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but He has extended to us grace in the sight of the kings of Persia, giving us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and giving us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

¹²And I will show you compassion, and he will have compassion on you and restore you to your own land.’

⁵⁰May You forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all the transgressions they have committed against You, and may You grant them compassion in the eyes of their captors to show them mercy.

¹¹The Lord said: “Surely I will deliver you for a good purpose; surely I will intercede with your enemy in your time of trouble, in your time of distress.

¹¹O Lord, may Your ear be attentive to my prayer and to the prayers of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” (At that time I was the cupbearer to the king.)

⁹For if you return to the Lord, your brothers and sons will receive mercy in the presence of their captors and will return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful; He will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him.”

³⁵Then cry out: ‘Save us, O God of our salvation; gather and deliver us from the nations, that we may give thanks to Your holy name, that we may glory in Your praise.’

³⁶Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.” Then all the people said, “Amen!” and “Praise the Lord!”

¹⁴But thanks be to God, who always leads us triumphantly as captives in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him.

¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

¹¹And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. And they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God,

²⁴For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and I will bring you back into your own land.

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

¹Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His loving devotion endures forever.

²Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy

⁷Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come from Zion! When the Lord restores His captive people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad!

¹³Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.

⁵²Blessed be the Lord forever! Amen and amen.

¹⁰Then David blessed the Lord in the sight of all the assembly and said: “May You be blessed, O Lord, God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.

¹⁸Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds.

¹⁹And blessed be His glorious name forever; may all the earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen.

⁴⁵that they might keep His statutes and obey His laws. Hallelujah!

¹⁶Otherwise, if you speak a blessing in spirit, how can someone who is uninstructed say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying?