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Psalm 29

1  Ascribe to the Lord, you powers of heaven, ♦︎
   ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
2  Ascribe to the Lord the honour due to his name; ♦︎
   worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
3  The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;
      the God of glory thunders; ♦︎
   the Lord is upon the mighty waters.
4  The voice of the Lord is mighty in operation; ♦︎
   the voice of the Lord is a glorious voice.
5  The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees; ♦︎
   the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon;
6  He makes Lebanon skip like a calf ♦︎
   and Sirion like a young wild ox.
7  The voice of the Lord splits the flash of lightning;
      the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; ♦︎
   the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
8  The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe
      and strips the forests bare; ♦︎
   in his temple all cry, ‘Glory!’
9  The Lord sits enthroned above the water flood; ♦︎
   the Lord sits enthroned as king for evermore.
10  The Lord shall give strength to his people; ♦︎
   the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.

Psalm 30

1  I will exalt you, O Lord,
      because you have raised me up ♦︎
   and have not let my foes triumph over me.
2  O Lord my God, I cried out to you ♦︎
   and you have healed me.
3  You brought me up, O Lord, from the dead; ♦︎
   you restored me to life from among those that go down to the Pit.
4  Sing to the Lord, you servants of his; ♦︎
   give thanks to his holy name.
5  For his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye,
      his favour for a lifetime. ♦︎
   Heaviness may endure for a night,
      but joy comes in the morning.
6  In my prosperity I said,
      ‘I shall never be moved. ♦︎
   You, Lord, of your goodness,
      have made my hill so strong.’
7  Then you hid your face from me ♦︎
   and I was utterly dismayed.
8  To you, O Lord, I cried; ♦︎
   to the Lord I made my supplication:
9  ‘What profit is there in my blood,
      if I go down to the Pit? ♦︎
   Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness?
10  ‘Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me; ♦︎
   O Lord, be my helper.’
11  You have turned my mourning into dancing; ♦︎
   you have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness;
12  Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; ♦︎
   O Lord my God, I will give you thanks for ever.

17Moreover, Ahithophel said to Absalom, ‘Let me choose twelve thousand men, and I will set out and pursue David tonight. ²I will come upon him while he is weary and discouraged, and throw him into a panic; and all the people who are with him will flee. I will strike down only the king, ³and I will bring all the people back to you as a bride comes home to her husband. You seek the life of only one man,^* and all the people will be at peace.’ ⁴The advice pleased Absalom and all the elders of Israel.

The Counsel of Hushai

5 Then Absalom said, ‘Call Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear too what he has to say.’ ⁶When Hushai came to Absalom, Absalom said to him, ‘This is what Ahithophel has said; shall we do as he advises? If not, you tell us.’ ⁷Then Hushai said to Absalom, ‘This time the counsel that Ahithophel has given is not good.’ ⁸Hushai continued, ‘You know that your father and his men are warriors, and that they are enraged, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. Besides, your father is expert in war; he will not spend the night with the troops. ⁹Even now he has hidden himself in one of the pits, or in some other place. And when some of our troops^* fall at the first attack, whoever hears it will say, “There has been a slaughter among the troops who follow Absalom.” ¹⁰Then even the valiant warrior, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will utterly melt with fear; for all Israel knows that your father is a warrior, and that those who are with him are valiant warriors. ¹¹But my counsel is that all Israel be gathered to you, from Dan to Beer-sheba, like the sand by the sea for multitude, and that you go to battle in person. ¹²So we shall come upon him in whatever place he may be found, and we shall light on him as the dew falls on the ground; and he will not survive, nor will any of those with him. ¹³If he withdraws into a city, then all Israel will bring ropes to that city, and we shall drag it into the valley, until not even a pebble is to be found there.’ ¹⁴Absalom and all the men of Israel said, ‘The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.’ For the Lord had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the Lord might bring ruin on Absalom.

Hushai Warns David to Escape

15 Then Hushai said to the priests Zadok and Abiathar, ‘Thus and so did Ahithophel counsel Absalom and the elders of Israel; and thus and so I have counselled. ¹⁶Therefore send quickly and tell David, “Do not lodge tonight at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means cross over; otherwise the king and all the people who are with him will be swallowed up.” ’ ¹⁷Jonathan and Ahimaaz were waiting at En-rogel; a servant-girl used to go and tell them, and they would go and tell King David; for they could not risk being seen entering the city. ¹⁸But a boy saw them, and told Absalom; so both of them went away quickly, and came to the house of a man at Bahurim, who had a well in his courtyard; and they went down into it. ¹⁹The man’s wife took a covering, stretched it over the well’s mouth, and spread out grain on it; and nothing was known of it. ²⁰When Absalom’s servants came to the woman at the house, they said, ‘Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?’ The woman said to them, ‘They have crossed over the brook^* of water.’ And when they had searched and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem.

21 After they had gone, the men came up out of the well, and went and told King David. They said to David, ‘Go and cross the water quickly; for thus and so has Ahithophel counselled against you.’ ²²So David and all the people who were with him set out and crossed the Jordan; by daybreak not one was left who had not crossed the Jordan.

23 When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city. He set his house in order, and hanged himself; he died and was buried in the tomb of his father.

24 Then David came to Mahanaim, while Absalom crossed the Jordan with all the men of Israel. ²⁵Now Absalom had set Amasa over the army in the place of Joab. Amasa was the son of a man named Ithra the Ishmaelite,^* who had married Abigal daughter of Nahash, sister of Zeruiah, Joab’s mother. ²⁶The Israelites and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead.

27 When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Machir son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim ²⁸brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, meal, parched grain, beans and lentils,^{* 29}honey and curds, sheep, and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat; for they said, ‘The troops are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.’

Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. ¹³Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴He said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard it.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; ¹⁶and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?
   But you have made it a den of robbers.’
¹⁸And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. ¹⁹And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples^* went out of the city.

The Lesson from the Withered Fig Tree

20 In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. ²¹Then Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.’ ²²Jesus answered them, ‘Have^* faith in God. ²³Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea”, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. ²⁴So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received^* it, and it will be yours.

25 ‘Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.’^*