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Psalm 144

1  Blessed be the Lord my rock, ♦︎
   who teaches my hands for war and my fingers for battle;
2  My steadfast help and my fortress,
      my stronghold and my deliverer,
      my shield in whom I trust, ♦︎
   who subdues the peoples under me.
3  O Lord, what are mortals that you should consider them; ♦︎
   mere human beings, that you should take thought for them?
4  They are like a breath of wind; ♦︎
   their days pass away like a shadow.
5  Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down; ♦︎
   touch the mountains and they shall smoke.
6  Cast down your lightnings and scatter them; ♦︎
   shoot out your arrows and let thunder roar.
7  Reach down your hand from on high; ♦︎
   deliver me and take me out of the great waters,
      from the hand of foreign enemies,
8  Whose mouth speaks wickedness ♦︎
   and their right hand is the hand of falsehood.
9  O God, I will sing to you a new song; ♦︎
   I will play to you on a ten-stringed harp,
10  You that give salvation to kings ♦︎
   and have delivered David your servant.
11  Save me from the peril of the sword ♦︎
   and deliver me from the hand of foreign enemies,
12  Whose mouth speaks wickedness ♦︎
   and whose right hand is the hand of falsehood;
13  So that our sons in their youth
      may be like well-nurtured plants, ♦︎
   and our daughters like pillars
      carved for the corners of the temple;
14  Our barns be filled with all manner of store; ♦︎
   our flocks bearing thousands,
      and ten thousands in our fields;
15  Our cattle be heavy with young: ♦︎
   may there be no miscarriage or untimely birth,
      no cry of distress in our streets.
16  Happy are the people whose blessing this is. ♦︎
   Happy are the people who have the Lord for their God.

2 At that time the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites a second time.’ ³So Joshua made flint knives, and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath-haaraloth.^{* 4}This is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the warriors, had died during the journey through the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt. ⁵Although all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people born on the journey through the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. ⁶For the Israelites travelled for forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the warriors who came out of Egypt, perished, not having listened to the voice of the Lord. To them the Lord swore that he would not let them see the land that he had sworn to their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. ⁷So it was their children, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way.

8 When the circumcising of all the nation was done, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. ⁹The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal^* to this day.

The Passover at Gilgal

10 While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. ¹¹On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. ¹²The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

Joshua’s Vision

13 Once when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?’ ¹⁴He replied, ‘Neither; but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshipped, and he said to him, ‘What do you command your servant, my lord?’ ¹⁵The commander of the army of the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.’ And Joshua did so.

The Mission of the Seventy

10After this the Lord appointed seventy^* others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. ²He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. ³Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. ⁴Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. ⁵Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” ⁶And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. ⁷Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. ⁸Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; ⁹cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”^{* 10}But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ¹¹“Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”^{* 12}I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.

Woes to Unrepentant Cities

13 ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. ¹⁴But at the judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. ¹⁵And you, Capernaum,
will you be exalted to heaven?
   No, you will be brought down to Hades.

16 ‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’