Psalm 78

⁴Pay attention to Me, My people, and listen to Me, My nation; for a law will go out from Me, and My justice will become a light to the nations; I will bring it about quickly.

³Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.

¹Now the Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded.

²So he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.

⁷“Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, your God.

⁴“To you, O men, I call out, and my cry is to the sons of men.

⁵O simple ones, learn to be shrewd; O fools, gain understanding.

¹A Maskil of Asaph. Why have You rejected us forever, O God? Why does Your anger smolder against the sheep of Your pasture?

³⁴Jesus spoke all these things to the crowds in parables. He did not tell them anything without using a parable.

³⁵So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.”

¹¹He replied, “The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.

¹²Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

³⁴He did not tell them anything without using a parable. But privately He explained everything to His own disciples.

⁴I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will express my riddle with the harp:

⁶by understanding the proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise.

¹For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us the work You did in their days, in the days of old.

²⁶When your children ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’

²⁷you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck down the Egyptians and spared our homes.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped.

⁸And on that day you are to explain to your son, ‘This is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’

¹⁴In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

¹⁵And when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of man and beast. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the firstborn male of every womb, but I redeem all the firstborn of my sons.’

⁸As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish her forever. Selah

¹⁹Teach them to your children, speaking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

³Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

⁹Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.

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

⁵the glorious splendor of Your majesty. And I will meditate on Your wondrous works.

⁷And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

¹⁷O God, You have taught me from my youth, and to this day I proclaim Your marvelous deeds.

¹⁸Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, until I proclaim Your power to the next generation, Your might to all who are to come.

⁴Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath; instead, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

¹⁹For I have chosen him, so that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what He has promised.”

⁷And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

⁴⁵These are the testimonies, statutes, and ordinances that Moses proclaimed to them after they had come out of Egypt,

⁵He ordained it as a testimony for Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt, where I heard an unfamiliar language:

¹⁹The living, only the living, can thank You, as I do today; fathers will tell their children about Your faithfulness.

³Tell it to your children; let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

¹⁸Let this be written for the generation to come, so that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.

¹⁶May Your work be shown to Your servants, and Your splendor to their children.

²⁸These days should be remembered and celebrated by every generation, family, province, and city, so that these days of Purim should not fail to be observed among the Jews, nor should the memory of them fade from their descendants.

¹⁰The day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, “Gather the people before Me to hear My words, so that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach them to their children.”

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

²⁹If only they had such a heart to fear Me and keep all My commandments always, so that it might be well with them and with their children forever.

¹²Here is a call for the perseverance of the saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

⁹Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.

³For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome,

²¹Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.”

²²Judas (not Iscariot) asked Him, “Lord, why are You going to reveal Yourself to us and not to the world?”

⁷But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.

⁸He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit.

³⁷Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

⁹The Lord also said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.

¹⁴But they would not listen, and they stiffened their necks like their fathers, who did not believe the Lord their God.

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.

²⁷For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you are already rebelling against the Lord while I am still alive, how much more will you rebel after my death!

⁵¹You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.

¹Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa.

⁴¹“We have sinned against the Lord,” you replied. “We will go up and fight, as the Lord our God has commanded us.” Then each of you put on his weapons of war, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country.

⁴²But the Lord said to me, “Tell them not to go up and fight, for I am not with you to keep you from defeat by your enemies.”

¹⁶“The hill country is not enough for us,” they replied, “and all the Canaanites who live in the valley have iron chariots, both in Beth-shean with its towns and in the Valley of Jezreel.”

¹⁷So Joshua said to the house of Joseph—to Ephraim and Manasseh—“You have many people and great strength. You shall not have just one allotment,

⁵⁷They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

²⁸Then Gaal son of Ebed said, “Who is Abimelech, and who is Shechem, that we should serve him? Is he not the son of Jerubbaal, and is not Zebul his officer? You are to serve the men of Hamor, the father of Shechem. Why should we serve Abimelech?

³⁹the men of Israel would turn in the battle. When the Benjamites had begun to strike them down, killing about thirty men of Israel, they said, “They are defeated before us as in the first battle.”

²⁰When I have brought them into the land that I swore to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, they will eat their fill and prosper. Then they will turn to other gods and worship them, and they will reject Me and break My covenant.

²⁶But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

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.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses, “You will soon rest with your fathers, and these people will rise up and prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I have made with them.

¹⁰After that whole generation had also been gathered to their fathers, another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works that He had done for Israel.

¹¹And the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.

¹⁴But they would not listen, and they stiffened their necks like their fathers, who did not believe the Lord their God.

¹⁵They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, going after the surrounding nations that the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.

³²It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

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

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

⁷that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.

²¹They forgot God their Savior, who did great things in Egypt,

²²wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

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

²²They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, dwelled. It had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.

¹¹The princes of Zoan are mere fools; Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise, a son of eastern kings”?

¹⁴I will lay waste Pathros, set fire to Zoan, and execute judgment on Thebes.

¹³The princes of Zoan have become fools; the princes of Memphis are deceived. The cornerstones of her tribes have led Egypt astray.

¹The Lord answered Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.

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

²¹Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove back the sea with a strong east wind that turned it into dry land. So the waters were divided,

⁸At the blast of Your nostrils the waters piled up; like a wall the currents stood firm; the depths congealed in the heart of the sea.

⁶He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the waters on foot; there we rejoiced in Him.

⁹He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; He led them through the depths as through a desert.

¹⁰He saved them from the hand that hated them; He redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

¹⁶the flowing water stood still. It backed up as far upstream as Adam, a city in the area of Zarethan, while the water flowing toward the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.

¹³He divided the Red Sea in two His loving devotion endures forever.

¹⁴and led Israel through the midst, His loving devotion endures forever.

³⁹He spread a cloud as a covering and a fire to light up the night.

²¹And the Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide their way by day, and in a pillar of fire to give them light by night, so that they could travel by day or night.

²²Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place before the people.

²⁴At morning watch, however, the Lord looked down on the army of the Egyptians from the pillar of fire and cloud, and He threw their camp into confusion.

¹²You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they should travel.

³⁵Moses was unable to enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

³⁶Whenever the cloud was lifted from above the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out through all the stages of their journey.

¹⁹You in Your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud never turned away from guiding them on their path; and by the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go.

⁶Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.

⁴¹He opened a rock, and water gushed out; it flowed like a river in the desert.

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.

⁴and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

⁸who turned the rock into a pool, the flint into a fountain of water!

²⁰The beasts of the field will honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I provide water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people.

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.

⁸“Take the staff and assemble the congregation. You and your brother Aaron are to speak to the rock while they watch, and it will pour out its water. You will bring out water from the rock and provide drink for the congregation and their livestock.”

¹⁵He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land. He brought you water from the rock of flint.

⁴¹He opened a rock, and water gushed out; it flowed like a river in the desert.

²¹And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.

¹⁰But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

¹⁶For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?

¹⁷And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

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

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

¹⁴They craved intensely in the wilderness and tested God in the desert.

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

⁹where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work.

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.

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

¹⁶Do not test the Lord your God as you tested Him at Massah.

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

¹⁴They craved intensely in the wilderness and tested God in the desert.

¹⁵So He granted their request, but sent a wasting disease upon them.

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

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

³“If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!”

⁵and spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you led us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread or water, and we detest this wretched food!”

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

³“If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!”

⁸And Moses added, “The Lord will give you meat to eat this evening and bread to fill you in the morning, for He has heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the Lord.”

⁹Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the whole congregation of Israel, ‘Come before the Lord, for He has heard your grumbling.’”

⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

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

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.

²¹But Moses replied, “Here I am among 600,000 men on foot, yet You say, ‘I will give them meat, and they will eat for a month.’

²²If all our flocks and herds were slaughtered for them, would they have enough? Or if all the fish in the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?”

⁴¹Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁸And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, because you have cried out in the hearing of the Lord, saying: ‘Who will feed us meat? For we were better off in Egypt!’ Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat.

¹²So she laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

¹³And the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Can I really bear a child when I am old?’

⁶Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.

⁷He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

⁵Although you are fully aware of this, I want to remind you that after Jesus had delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, He destroyed those who did not believe.

¹Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of the Lord, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.

²And the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down.

¹¹Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

¹⁰Then Moses heard the people of family after family weeping at the entrances to their tents, and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, and Moses was also displeased.

²⁹“For our God is a consuming fire.”

³¹God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

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.

⁵Although you are fully aware of this, I want to remind you that after Jesus had delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, He destroyed those who did not believe.

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

⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God. For anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

¹²See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God.

⁹The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you do not stand firm in your faith, then you will not stand at all.’”

¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

¹⁰Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this,” says the Lord of Hosts. “See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out for you blessing without measure.

⁹For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.

¹⁹And the officer had answered the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord were to make windows in heaven, could this really happen?” So Elisha had replied, “You will see it with your own eyes, but you will not eat any of it!”

⁶I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”

²But the officer on whose arm the king leaned answered the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord were to make windows in heaven, could this really happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” replied Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it.”

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether or not they will follow My instructions.

⁴⁰They asked, and He brought quail and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

³¹Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

³²Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

³He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

¹⁵In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven; in their thirst You brought them water from the rock. You told them to go in and possess the land that You had sworn to give them.

²⁰You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst.

⁸And Moses added, “The Lord will give you meat to eat this evening and bread to fill you in the morning, for He has heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the Lord.”

³⁷They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

²⁰They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

²⁰Bless the Lord, all His angels mighty in strength who carry out His word, who hearken to the voice of His command.

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.

⁷He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

¹²“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

¹³That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.

¹⁸And say to the people: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you will eat meat, because you have cried out in the hearing of the Lord, saying: ‘Who will feed us meat? For we were better off in Egypt!’ Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat.

¹⁹You will eat it not for one or two days, nor for five or ten or twenty days,

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.

¹⁹You will eat it not for one or two days, nor for five or ten or twenty days,

²⁰but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and makes you nauseous—because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have cried out before Him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”

¹⁵So He granted their request, but sent a wasting disease upon them.

³³But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and the Lord struck them with a severe plague.

³⁴So they called that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.

³²For the waywardness of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

¹⁹Now there was a rich man dressed in purple and fine linen, who lived each day in joyous splendor.

²⁰And a beggar named Lazarus lay at his gate, covered with sores

²⁰That night God came to Balaam and said, “Since these men have come to summon you, get up and go with them, but you must only do what I tell you.”

²¹So in the morning Balaam got up, saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab.

³⁷Although Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still did not believe in Him.

²²because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

³¹Then Abraham said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”

¹³Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not follow My statutes and they rejected My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they utterly profaned My Sabbaths. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and put an end to them in the wilderness.

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

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!

³⁵I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this entire wicked congregation, which has conspired against Me. They will meet their end in the wilderness, and there they will die.”

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.

⁶⁴Among all these, however, there was not one who had been numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Wilderness of Sinai.

⁶⁵For the Lord had told them that they would surely die in the wilderness. Not one was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

¹³When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.

¹⁴For God will bring every deed into judgment, along with every hidden thing, whether good or evil.

¹⁴The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the Brook of Zered was thirty-eight years, until that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them.

¹⁵Indeed, the Lord’s hand was against them, to eliminate them from the camp, until they had all perished.

¹³And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a miserable task God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!

¹⁴I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.

¹⁵Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

⁷Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede with the Lord so He will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses interceded for the people.

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.

¹³After enlisting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join forces with him, Eglon attacked and defeated Israel, taking possession of the City of Palms.

¹⁴They do not cry out to Me from their hearts when they wail upon their beds. They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from Me.

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.

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.

⁶Feet trample it down—the feet of the oppressed, the steps of the poor.

⁴He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.

¹⁴Do not fear, O Jacob, you worm, O few men of Israel. I will help you,” declares the Lord. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

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

¹⁴He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

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.

¹³Therefore the Lord said: “These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.

³¹So My people come to you as usual, sit before you, and hear your words; but they do not put them into practice. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest gain.

⁴⁴When they hear me, they obey me; foreigners cower before me.

¹¹Whom have you dreaded and feared, so that you lied and failed to remember Me or take this to heart? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear Me?

¹²Ephraim surrounds Me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit; but Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One.

²⁸And the Lord heard the words you spoke to me, and He said to me, “I have heard the words that these people have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken.

²⁹If only they had such a heart to fear Me and keep all My commandments always, so that it might be well with them and with their children forever.

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.

²¹You have no part or share in our ministry, because your heart is not right before God.

¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

¹⁴They do not cry out to Me from their hearts when they wail upon their beds. They slash themselves for grain and new wine, but turn away from Me.

⁸⁰May my heart be blameless in Your statutes, that I may not be put to shame.

²⁰When I have brought them into the land that I swore to give their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, they will eat their fill and prosper. Then they will turn to other gods and worship them, and they will reject Me and break My covenant.

⁹For the sake of My name I will delay My wrath; for the sake of My praise I will restrain it, so that you will not be cut off.

¹⁸‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.’

¹⁹Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people, in keeping with the greatness of Your loving devotion, just as You have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”

¹⁷Yet I looked on them with pity and did not destroy them or bring them to an end in the wilderness.

¹³Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness. They did not follow My statutes and they rejected My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they utterly profaned My Sabbaths. Then I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and put an end to them in the wilderness.

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.

²¹Remember these things, O Jacob, for you are My servant, O Israel. I have made you, and you are My servant; O Israel, I will never forget you.

²²I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.

²¹But the children rebelled against Me. They did not walk in My statutes or carefully observe My ordinances—though the man who does these things will live by them—and they profaned My Sabbaths. So I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and vent My anger against them in the wilderness.

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.

¹⁴You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

³So the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years.”

⁷Remember that my life is but a breath. My eyes will never again see happiness.

¹⁶I loathe my life! I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

¹⁴For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.

¹⁵As for man, his days are like grass—he blooms like a flower of the field;

⁹Please remember that You molded me like clay. Would You now return me to dust?

³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

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

⁹where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work.

¹⁰But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

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

¹⁶For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?

¹¹And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, despite all the signs I have performed among them?

¹⁷But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

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—

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.

³⁹But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

¹⁶Do not test the Lord your God as you tested Him at Massah.

²¹It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn away from the holy commandment passed on to them.

²²Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”

⁴So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”

³⁴The Israelites failed to remember the Lord their God who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.

²¹You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terror.

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

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.”

¹⁰He struck down the firstborn of Egypt His loving devotion endures forever.

¹¹and brought Israel out from among them His loving devotion endures forever.

⁷Our fathers in Egypt did not grasp Your wonders or remember Your abundant kindness; but they rebelled by the sea, there at the Red Sea.

⁸Yet He saved them for the sake of His name, to make His power known.

²¹The Lord instructed Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

²²Before our eyes the Lord inflicted great and devastating signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his household.

¹⁹But I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless a mighty hand compels him.

²⁰So I will stretch out My hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders I will perform among them. And after that, he will release you.

³⁴Or has any god tried to take as his own a nation out of another nation—by trials, signs, wonders, and war, by a strong hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors—as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before your eyes?

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

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.

²⁹He turned their waters to blood and caused their fish to die.

¹⁷This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord. Behold, with the staff in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will turn to blood.

¹⁸The fish in the Nile will die, the river will stink, and the Egyptians will be unable to drink its water.’”

³And the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it turned to blood like that of the dead, and every living thing in the sea died.

⁴And the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and springs of water, and they turned to blood.

²¹But if you will not let My people go, I will send swarms of flies upon you and your officials and your people and your houses. The houses of the Egyptians and even the ground where they stand will be full of flies.

²²But on that day I will give special treatment to the land of Goshen, where My people live; no swarms of flies will be found there. In this way you will know that I, the Lord, am in the land.

²But if you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs.

³The Nile will teem with frogs, and they will come into your palace and up to your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and your people, and into your ovens and kneading bowls.

³⁰Their land teemed with frogs, even in their royal chambers.

³¹He spoke, and insects swarmed—gnats throughout their country.

³And the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it turned to blood like that of the dead, and every living thing in the sea died.

¹²Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt, so that the locusts may swarm over it and devour every plant in the land—everything that the hail has left behind.”

¹³So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and throughout that day and night the Lord sent an east wind across the land. By morning the east wind had brought the locusts.

³⁴He spoke, and the locusts came—young locusts without number.

³⁵They devoured every plant in their land and consumed the produce of their soil.

²The star opened the pit of the Abyss, and smoke rose out of it like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit.

³And out of the smoke, locusts descended on the earth, and they were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth.

⁴What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

⁵Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.

²⁵I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts—the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust—My great army that I sent against you.

¹This is what the Lord God showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up.

²And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

¹⁸Behold, at this time tomorrow I will rain down the worst hail that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded until now.

¹⁹So give orders now to shelter your livestock and everything you have in the field. Every man or beast that remains in the field and is not brought inside will die when the hail comes down upon them.’”

³²He gave them hail for rain, with lightning throughout their land.

³³He struck their vines and fig trees and shattered the trees of their country.

¹⁹So give orders now to shelter your livestock and everything you have in the field. Every man or beast that remains in the field and is not brought inside will die when the hail comes down upon them.’”

²⁸Pray to the Lord, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go; you do not need to stay any longer.”

¹³The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a sign; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will fall on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

⁷You overthrew Your adversaries by Your great majesty. You unleashed Your burning wrath; it consumed them like stubble.

⁶On the wicked He will rain down fiery coals and sulfur; a scorching wind will be their portion.

¹¹The Lord has exhausted His wrath; He has poured out His fierce anger; He has kindled a fire in Zion, and it has consumed her foundations.

²¹Then a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ asked the Lord.

²²And he replied, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’ ‘You will surely entice him and prevail,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’

¹⁶But when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

⁴I will not look on you with pity, nor will I spare you, but I will punish you for your ways and for the abominations among you. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’

⁴For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them deep into hell, placing them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;

⁵if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;

¹⁸Therefore I will respond with wrath. I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. Although they shout loudly in My ears, I will not listen to them.”

³then the hand of the Lord will bring a severe plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks.

⁴But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.’”

¹⁰But as for Me, I will not look on them with pity, nor will I spare them. I will bring their deeds down upon their own heads.”

³²He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?

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

⁸He struck down the firstborn of Egypt, of both man and beast.

²²wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

³⁶Then He struck all the firstborn in their land, the firstfruits of all their vigor.

¹⁰He struck down the firstborn of Egypt His loving devotion endures forever.

²⁹Now at midnight the Lord struck down every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as all the firstborn among the livestock.

³⁰During the night Pharaoh got up—he and all his officials and all the Egyptians—and there was loud wailing in Egypt; for there was no house without someone dead.

²⁰You led Your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

¹²You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they should travel.

¹¹I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

¹²The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own. When he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf pounces on them and scatters the flock.

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,

³Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

³⁷He brought Israel out with silver and gold, and none among His tribes stumbled.

¹⁹And the angel of God, who had gone before the camp of Israel, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from before them and stood behind them,

²⁰so that it came between the camps of Egypt and Israel. The cloud was there in the darkness, but it lit up the night. So all night long neither camp went near the other.

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

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.

²⁹By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to follow, they were drowned.

¹⁵but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea. His loving devotion endures forever.

¹⁵Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.

³For it was not by their sword that they took the land; their arm did not bring them victory. It was by Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, because You favored them.

¹⁷You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance—the place, O Lord, You have prepared for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, Your hands have established.

⁹They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is full of water.

¹⁶Why do you gaze in envy, O mountains of many peaks? This is the mountain God chose for His dwelling, where the Lord will surely dwell forever.

¹⁶O Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, I pray that Your anger and wrath may turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all around us.

¹⁷So now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of Your servant. For Your sake, O Lord, cause Your face to shine upon Your desolate sanctuary.

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

⁷Now therefore divide this land as an inheritance to the nine tribes and the half-tribe of Manasseh.”

²With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.

²²You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner of the land. So they took the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and of Og king of Bashan.

²³You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven and brought them to the land You had told their fathers to enter and possess.

¹⁰And when the Lord your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would give you—a land with great and splendid cities that you did not build,

¹¹with houses full of every good thing with which you did not fill them, with wells that you did not dig, and with vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied,

¹Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.

²And the Lord said to Joshua, “Behold, I have delivered Jericho into your hand, along with its king and its mighty men of valor.

⁵⁴And you are to divide the land by lot according to your clans. Give a larger inheritance to a larger clan and a smaller inheritance to a smaller one. Whatever falls to each one by lot will be his. You will receive an inheritance according to the tribes of your fathers.

¹¹And the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.

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,

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses, “You will soon rest with your fathers, and these people will rise up and prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I have made with them.

¹⁷On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’

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

⁴¹Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

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

⁷All this happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods

⁸and walked in the customs of the nations that the Lord had driven out before the Israelites, as well as in the practices introduced by the kings of Israel.

²⁵They captured fortified cities and fertile land and took houses full of all goods, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled; they grew fat and delighted in Your great goodness.

²⁶But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

¹⁶They turn, but not to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword for the cursing of their tongue; for this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.

²⁷Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel, and tell them that this is what the Lord God says: In this way also your fathers blasphemed Me by their unfaithfulness against Me.

²⁸When I brought them into the land that I swore to give them and they saw any high hill or leafy tree, there they offered their sacrifices, presented offerings that provoked Me, sent up their fragrant incense, and poured out their drink offerings.

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.

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.

¹⁰They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.

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

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.

²¹They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.

³⁰I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you.

²²Are we trying to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

³¹Jeroboam also built shrines on the high places and appointed from every class of people priests who were not Levites.

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.

⁷At that time on a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites.

⁴⁰So the anger of the Lord burned against His people, and He abhorred His own inheritance.

⁷The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord as on the day of an appointed feast.

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

⁴⁴Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or despise them so as to destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God.

⁴The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord is on His heavenly throne. His eyes are watching closely; they examine the sons of men.

²³You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.

¹Then the whole congregation of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the Tent of Meeting there. And though the land was subdued before them,

⁴So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

⁵When the ark of the covenant of the Lord entered the camp, all the Israelites raised such a great shout that the ground shook.

⁶then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth.’”

⁷Now the priests and prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord,

³Year after year Elkanah would go up from his city to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts at Shiloh, where Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the Lord.

¹²But go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.

¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer,

⁸Arise, O Lord, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength.

²¹And she named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel,” because the ark of God had been captured and her father-in-law and her husband had been killed.

¹⁷The messenger answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are both dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”

³⁰The Danites set up idols for themselves, and Jonathan son of Gershom, the son of Moses, and his sons were priests for the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.

³⁴Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

⁷Lift up your heads, O gates! Be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may enter!

²The Philistines arrayed themselves against Israel, and as the battle spread, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who struck down about four thousand men on the battlefield.

³⁸Now, however, You have spurned and rejected him; You are enraged by Your anointed one.

⁹Do not be angry, O Lord, beyond measure; do not remember our iniquity forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray; we are all Your people!

¹⁰So the Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great—thirty thousand foot soldiers of Israel fell.

¹¹The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

³⁴I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

⁹For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to remove from this place, before your very eyes and in your days, the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom.

¹Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of the Lord, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.

²¹Therefore the Lord heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,

²⁰The Lord will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The Lord will blot out his name from under heaven

¹⁰Moreover, I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

¹⁷The messenger answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are both dead, and the ark of God has been captured.”

¹⁵His survivors will be buried by the plague, and their widows will not weep for them.

²³Your turbans will remain on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or weep, but you will waste away because of your sins, and you will groan among yourselves.

¹¹The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

¹⁸So the king ordered Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests!” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests himself. On that day he killed eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod.

¹⁹He also put to the sword Nob, the city of the priests, with its men and women, children and infants, oxen, donkeys, and sheep.

¹⁹Now Eli’s daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and about to give birth. When she heard the news of the capture of God’s ark and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband, she collapsed and gave birth, for her labor pains overtook her.

²⁰As she was dying, the women attending to her said, “Do not be afraid, for you have given birth to a son!” But she did not respond or pay any heed.

²³Wake up, O Lord! Why are You sleeping? Arise! Do not reject us forever.

⁶Arise, O Lord, in Your anger; rise up against the fury of my enemies. Awake, my God, and ordain judgment.

⁹Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Wake up as in days past, as in generations of old. Was it not You who cut Rahab to pieces, who pierced through the dragon?

¹³The Lord goes forth like a mighty one; He stirs up His zeal like a warrior. He shouts; yes, He roars in triumph over His enemies:

¹⁴“I have kept silent from ages past; I have remained quiet and restrained. But now I will groan like a woman in labor; I will at once gasp and pant.

²⁰Like one waking from a dream, so You, O Lord, awaken and despise their form.

⁶Now the hand of the Lord was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity, ravaging them and afflicting them with tumors.

⁴⁰And I will bring upon you everlasting shame and perpetual humiliation that will never be forgotten.”

¹²Look on every proud man and humble him; trample the wicked where they stand.

⁴“What guilt offering should we send back to Him?” asked the Philistines. “Five gold tumors and five gold rats,” they said, “according to the number of rulers of the Philistines, since the same plague has struck both you and your rulers.

²¹So they sent messengers to the people of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down and take it up with you.”

¹⁷So they brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. Then David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the Lord.

²And he and all his troops set out for Baale of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name—the name of the Lord of Hosts, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on it.

²The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

¹²If your sons keep My covenant and the testimony I will teach them, then their sons will also sit on your throne forever and ever.”

¹³For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His home:

⁸Judah, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the necks of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down to you.

⁹Judah is a young lion—my son, you return from the prey. Like a lion he crouches and lies down; like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?

⁶But now I have chosen Jerusalem for My Name to be there, and I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’

¹Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have selected from his sons a king for Myself.”

¹⁷The neighbor women said, “A son has been born to Naomi,” and they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

¹⁸Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron,

¹In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord.

²The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.

⁶Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth below; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and its people will die like gnats. But My salvation will last forever, and My righteousness will never fail.

⁹to prepare for me timber in abundance, because the temple I am building will be great and wonderful.

⁸And when this temple has become a heap of rubble, all who pass by it will be appalled and will hiss and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’

¹⁶For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.

¹⁷He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

⁴The portico at the front, extending across the width of the temple, was twenty cubits long and twenty cubits high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold.

¹¹And Samuel asked him, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied, “but he is tending the sheep.” “Send for him,” Samuel replied. “For we will not sit down to eat until he arrives.”

¹²So Jesse sent for his youngest son and brought him in. He was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him, for he is the one.”

²²After removing Saul, He raised up David as their king and testified about him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after My own heart; he will carry out My will in its entirety.’

¹⁹You once spoke in a vision; to Your godly ones You said, “I have bestowed help on a warrior; I have exalted one chosen from the people.

²⁰I have found My servant David; with My sacred oil I have anointed him.

¹⁹So Elijah departed and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve teams of oxen, and he was with the twelfth team. Elijah passed by him and threw his cloak around him.

²⁰So Elisha left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Please let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, and then I will follow you.” “Go on back,” Elijah replied, “for what have I done to you?”

¹Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

¹⁵but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep in Bethlehem.

¹⁶For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening to take his stand.

²Even in times past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And to you the Lord said, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be ruler over them.’”

²Even in times past, while Saul was king, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And the Lord your God said, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be ruler over them.’”

²Be shepherds of God’s flock that is among you, watching over them not out of compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed, but out of eagerness;

⁷The Lord sends poverty and wealth; He humbles and He exalts.

⁸He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them among princes and bestows on them a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s, and upon them He has set the world.

¹³But Jacob replied, “My lord knows that the children are frail, and I must care for sheep and cattle that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard for even a day, all the animals will die.

¹Then Samuel took a flask of oil, poured it on Saul’s head, kissed him, and said, “Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over His inheritance?

⁴And as for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and uprightness, doing all I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances,

¹⁵Make every effort to present yourself approved to God, an unashamed workman who accurately handles the word of truth.

²The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.

³And He will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear,

²²After removing Saul, He raised up David as their king and testified about him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after My own heart; he will carry out My will in its entirety.’

¹A Psalm of David. I will sing of Your loving devotion and justice; to You, O Lord, I will sing praises.

²I will ponder the way that is blameless—when will You come to me? I will walk in my house with integrity of heart.

⁵For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not turned aside from anything the Lord commanded all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.