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Psalm 66

1  Be joyful in God, all the earth; ♦︎
   sing the glory of his name;
      sing the glory of his praise.
2  Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds! ♦︎
   Because of your great strength
      your enemies shall bow before you.
3  ‘All the earth shall worship you, ♦︎
   sing to you, sing praise to your name.’
4  Come now and behold the works of God, ♦︎
   how wonderful he is in his dealings with humankind.
5  He turned the sea into dry land;
      the river they passed through on foot; ♦︎
   there we rejoiced in him.
6  In his might he rules for ever;
      his eyes keep watch over the nations; ♦︎
   let no rebel rise up against him.
7  Bless our God, O you peoples; ♦︎
   make the voice of his praise to be heard,
8  Who holds our souls in life ♦︎
   and suffers not our feet to slip.
9  For you, O God, have proved us; ♦︎
   you have tried us as silver is tried.

⁴⁷ Assuredly, the days are coming
   when I will punish the images of Babylon;
her whole land shall be put to shame,
   and all her slain shall fall in her midst.
⁴⁸ Then the heavens and the earth,
   and all that is in them,
shall shout for joy over Babylon;
   for the destroyers shall come against them out of the north,

says the Lord.
⁴⁹ Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel,
   as the slain of all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.

⁵⁰ You survivors of the sword,
   go, do not linger!
Remember the Lord in a distant land,
   and let Jerusalem come into your mind:
⁵¹ We are put to shame, for we have heard insults;
   dishonour has covered our face,
for aliens have come
   into the holy places of the Lord’s house.

⁵² Therefore the time is surely coming, says the Lord,
   when I will punish her idols,
and through all her land
   the wounded shall groan.
⁵³ Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,
   and though she should fortify her strong height,
from me destroyers would come upon her,
   says the Lord.

⁵⁴ Listen!—a cry from Babylon!
   A great crashing from the land of the Chaldeans!
⁵⁵ For the Lord is laying Babylon waste,
   and stilling her loud clamour.
Their waves roar like mighty waters,
   the sound of their clamour resounds;
⁵⁶ for a destroyer has come against her,
   against Babylon;
her warriors are taken,
   their bows are broken;
for the Lord is a God of recompense,
   he will repay in full.
⁵⁷ I will make her officials and her sages drunk,
   also her governors, her deputies, and her warriors;
they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake,
   says the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

⁵⁸ Thus says the Lord of hosts:
The broad wall of Babylon
   shall be levelled to the ground,
and her high gates
   shall be burned with fire.
The peoples exhaust themselves for nothing,
   and the nations weary themselves only for fire.^*

Encouragement to Be Generous

8We want you to know, brothers and sisters,^* about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; ²for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. ³For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, ⁴begging us earnestly for the privilege^* of sharing in this ministry to the saints— ⁵and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, ⁶so that we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking^* among you. ⁷Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you^*—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.^*