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Psalm 124

1  If the Lord himself had not been on our side, ♦︎
   now may Israel say;
2  If the Lord had not been on our side, ♦︎
   when enemies rose up against us;
3  Then would they have swallowed us alive ♦︎
   when their anger burned against us;
4  Then would the waters have overwhelmed us
      and the torrent gone over our soul; ♦︎
   over our soul would have swept the raging waters.
5  But blessed be the Lord ♦︎
   who has not given us over to be a prey for their teeth.
6  Our soul has escaped
      as a bird from the snare of the fowler; ♦︎
   the snare is broken and we are delivered.
7  Our help is in the name of the Lord, ♦︎
   who has made heaven and earth.

Jacob’s Last Words to His Sons

49Then Jacob called his sons, and said: ‘Gather around, that I may tell you what will happen to you in days to come.
² Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob;
   listen to Israel your father.

³ ‘Reuben, you are my firstborn,
   my might and the first fruits of my vigour,
   excelling in rank and excelling in power.
⁴ Unstable as water, you shall no longer excel
   because you went up on to your father’s bed;
   then you defiled it—you^* went up on to my couch!

⁵ ‘Simeon and Levi are brothers;
   weapons of violence are their swords.
⁶ May I never come into their council;
   may I not be joined to their company—
for in their anger they killed men,
   and at their whim they hamstrung oxen.
⁷ Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,
   and their wrath, for it is cruel!
I will divide them in Jacob,
   and scatter them in Israel.

⁸ ‘Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
   your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
   your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
⁹ Judah is a lion’s whelp;
   from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion,
   like a lioness—who dares rouse him up?
¹⁰ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
   nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;^*
   and the obedience of the peoples is his.
¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine
   and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he washes his garments in wine
   and his robe in the blood of grapes;
¹² his eyes are darker than wine,
   and his teeth whiter than milk.

¹³ ‘Zebulun shall settle at the shore of the sea;
   he shall be a haven for ships,
   and his border shall be at Sidon.

¹⁴ ‘Issachar is a strong donkey,
   lying down between the sheepfolds;
¹⁵ he saw that a resting-place was good,
   and that the land was pleasant;
so he bowed his shoulder to the burden,
   and became a slave at forced labour.

¹⁶ ‘Dan shall judge his people
   as one of the tribes of Israel.
¹⁷ Dan shall be a snake by the roadside,
   a viper along the path,
that bites the horse’s heels
   so that its rider falls backwards.

¹⁸ ‘I wait for your salvation, O Lord.

¹⁹ ‘Gad shall be raided by raiders,
   but he shall raid at their heels.

²⁰ ‘Asher’s^* food shall be rich,
   and he shall provide royal delicacies.

²¹ ‘Naphtali is a doe let loose
   that bears lovely fawns.^*

²² ‘Joseph is a fruitful bough,
   a fruitful bough by a spring;
   his branches run over the wall.^*
23 The archers fiercely attacked him;
   they shot at him and pressed him hard.
²⁴ Yet his bow remained taut,
   and his arms^* were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,
   by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,
²⁵ by the God of your father, who will help you,
   by the Almighty^* who will bless you
   with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that lies beneath,
   blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
²⁶ The blessings of your father
   are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,
   the bounties^* of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
   on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

²⁷ ‘Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,
   in the morning devouring the prey,
   and at evening dividing the spoil.’

28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, blessing each one of them with a suitable blessing.

Jacob’s Death and Burial

29 Then he charged them, saying to them, ‘I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my ancestors—in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰in the cave in the field at Machpelah, near Mamre, in the land of Canaan, in the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site. ³¹There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried; there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried; and there I buried Leah— ³²the field and the cave that is in it were purchased from the Hittites.’ ³³When Jacob ended his charge to his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.

Lawsuits among Believers

6When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints? ²Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? ³Do you not know that we are to judge angels—to say nothing of ordinary matters? ⁴If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? ⁵I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to decide between one believer^* and another, ⁶but a believer^* goes to court against a believer^*—and before unbelievers at that?

7 In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸But you yourselves wrong and defraud—and believers^* at that.

9 Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, ¹⁰thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.