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Psalm 87

1  His foundation is on the holy mountains. ♦︎
   The Lord loves the gates of Zion
      more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
2  Glorious things are spoken of you, ♦︎
   Zion, city of our God.
3  I record Egypt and Babylon as those who know me; ♦︎
   behold Philistia, Tyre and Ethiopia:
      in Zion were they born.
4  And of Zion it shall be said, ‘Each one was born in her, ♦︎
   and the Most High himself has established her.’
5  The Lord will record as he writes up the peoples, ♦︎
   ‘This one also was born there.’
6  And as they dance they shall sing, ♦︎
   ‘All my fresh springs are in you.’

Psalm 88

1  O Lord, God of my salvation, ♦︎
   I have cried day and night before you.
2  Let my prayer come into your presence; ♦︎
   incline your ear to my cry.
3  For my soul is full of troubles; ♦︎
   my life draws near to the land of death.
4  I am counted as one gone down to the Pit; ♦︎
   I am like one that has no strength,
5  Lost among the dead, ♦︎
   like the slain who lie in the grave,
6  Whom you remember no more, ♦︎
   for they are cut off from your hand.
7  You have laid me in the lowest pit, ♦︎
   in a place of darkness in the abyss.
8  Your anger lies heavy upon me, ♦︎
   and you have afflicted me with all your waves.
9  You have put my friends far from me ♦︎
   and made me to be abhorred by them.
10  I am so fast in prison that I cannot get free; ♦︎
   my eyes fail from all my trouble.
11  Lord, I have called daily upon you; ♦︎
   I have stretched out my hands to you.
12  Do you work wonders for the dead? ♦︎
   Will the shades stand up and praise you?
13  Shall your loving-kindness be declared in the grave, ♦︎
   your faithfulness in the land of destruction?
14  Shall your wonders be known in the dark ♦︎
   or your righteous deeds in the land where all is forgotten?
15  But as for me, O Lord, I will cry to you; ♦︎
   early in the morning my prayer shall come before you.
16  Lord, why have you rejected my soul? ♦︎
   Why have you hidden your face from me?
17  I have been wretched and at the point of death from my youth; ♦︎
   I suffer your terrors and am no more seen.
18  Your wrath sweeps over me; ♦︎
   your horrors are come to destroy me;
19  All day long they come about me like water; ♦︎
   they close me in on every side.
20  Lover and friend have you put far from me ♦︎
   and hid my companions out of my sight.

46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, ‘I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?’

28Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, ‘You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women. ²Go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. ³May God Almighty^* bless you and make you fruitful and numerous, that you may become a company of peoples. ⁴May he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien—land that God gave to Abraham.’[ ⁵Thus Isaac sent Jacob away; and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.

Esau Marries Ishmael’s Daughter

6 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he charged him, ‘You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women’, ⁷and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram. ⁸So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please his father Isaac, ⁹Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, and sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.]

Jacob’s Dream at Bethel

10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards Haran. ¹¹He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. ¹²And he dreamed that there was a ladder^* set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³And the Lord stood beside him^* and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; ¹⁴and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed^* in you and in your offspring. ¹⁵Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’ ¹⁶Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’ ¹⁷And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’

18 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. ¹⁹He called that place Bethel;^* but the name of the city was Luz at the first. ²⁰Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, ²¹so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, ²²and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you.’

Godlessness in the Last Days

3You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. ²For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, ⁴treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them! ⁶For among them are those who make their way into households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by all kinds of desires, ⁷who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. ⁸As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these people, of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith, also oppose the truth. ⁹But they will not make much progress, because, as in the case of those two men,^* their folly will become plain to everyone.

Paul’s Charge to Timothy

10 Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, ¹¹my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. ¹²Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³But wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived. ¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, ¹⁵and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶All scripture is inspired by God and is^* useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

The Good News of Deliverance

61The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
   because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
   to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
   and release to the prisoners;
² to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,
   and the day of vengeance of our God;
   to comfort all who mourn;
³ to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
   to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
   the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
   the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
⁴ They shall build up the ancient ruins,
   they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
   the devastations of many generations.

⁵ Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,
   foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines;
⁶ but you shall be called priests of the Lord,
   you shall be named ministers of our God;
you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations,
   and in their riches you shall glory.
⁷ Because their^* shame was double,
   and dishonour was proclaimed as their lot,
therefore they shall possess a double portion;
   everlasting joy shall be theirs.

⁸ For I the Lord love justice,
   I hate robbery and wrongdoing;^*
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
   and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
⁹ Their descendants shall be known among the nations,
   and their offspring among the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge
   that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.

A Third Time Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

32 They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, ³³saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; ³⁴they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’

The Request of James and John

35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ ³⁶And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ ³⁷And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ ³⁸But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ ³⁹They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; ⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’

41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’