Bible Browser

Psalm 98

1  Sing to the Lord a new song, ♦︎
   for he has done marvellous things.
2  His own right hand and his holy arm ♦︎
   have won for him the victory.
3  The Lord has made known his salvation; ♦︎
   his deliverance has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.
4  He has remembered his mercy and faithfulness
      towards the house of Israel, ♦︎
   and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
5  Sound praises to the Lord, all the earth; ♦︎
   break into singing and make music.
6  Make music to the Lord with the lyre, ♦︎
   with the lyre and the voice of melody.
7  With trumpets and the sound of the horn ♦︎
   sound praises before the Lord, the King.
8  Let the sea thunder and all that fills it, ♦︎
   the world and all that dwell upon it.
9  Let the rivers clap their hands ♦︎
   and let the hills ring out together before the Lord,
      for he comes to judge the earth.
10  In righteousness shall he judge the world ♦︎
   and the peoples with equity.

David Avenges the Gibeonites

21Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. The Lord said, ‘There is blood-guilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.’ ²So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had tried to wipe them out in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.) ³David said to the Gibeonites, ‘What shall I do for you? How shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?’ ⁴The Gibeonites said to him, ‘It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put anyone to death in Israel.’ He said, ‘What do you say that I should do for you?’ ⁵They said to the king, ‘The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel— ⁶let seven of his sons be handed over to us, and we will impale them before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord.’^* The king said, ‘I will hand them over.’

7 But the king spared Mephibosheth,^* the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them, between David and Jonathan son of Saul. ⁸The king took the two sons of Rizpah daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth;^* and the five sons of Merab^* daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite; ⁹he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they impaled them on the mountain before the Lord. The seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of the barley harvest.

10 Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it on a rock for herself, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens; she did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies^* by day, or the wild animals by night. ¹¹When David was told what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, ¹²David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the people of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them up, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa. ¹³He brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan; and they gathered the bones of those who had been impaled. ¹⁴They buried the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of his father Kish; they did all that the king commanded. After that, God heeded supplications for the land.

Thanksgiving

3 We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters,^* as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. ⁴Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.

The Judgement at Christ’s Coming

5 This is evidence of the righteous judgement of God, and is intended to make you worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. ⁶For it is indeed just of God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷and to give relief to the afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels ⁸in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, ¹⁰when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marvelled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. ¹¹To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfil by his power every good resolve and work of faith, ¹²so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.