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Psalm 9

1  I will give thanks to you, Lord, with my whole heart; ♦︎
   I will tell of all your marvellous works.
2  I will be glad and rejoice in you; ♦︎
   I will make music to your name, O Most High.
3  When my enemies are driven back, ♦︎
   they stumble and perish at your presence.
4  For you have maintained my right and my cause; ♦︎
   you sat on your throne giving righteous judgement.
5  You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked; ♦︎
   you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.
6  The enemy was utterly laid waste. ♦︎
   You uprooted their cities;
      their very memory has perished.
7  But the Lord shall endure for ever; ♦︎
   he has made fast his throne for judgement.
8  For he shall rule the world with righteousness ♦︎
   and govern the peoples with equity.
9  Then will the Lord be a refuge for the oppressed, ♦︎
   a refuge in the time of trouble.
10  And those who know your name will put their trust in you, ♦︎
   for you, Lord, have never failed those who seek you.
11  Sing praises to the Lord who dwells in Zion; ♦︎
   declare among the peoples the things he has done.
12  The avenger of blood has remembered them; ♦︎
   he did not forget the cry of the oppressed.
13  Have mercy upon me, O Lord; ♦︎
   consider the trouble I suffer from those who hate me,
      you that lift me up from the gates of death;
14  That I may tell all your praises in the gates of the city of Zion ♦︎
   and rejoice in your salvation.
15  The nations shall sink into the pit of their making ♦︎
   and in the snare which they set will their own foot be taken.
16  The Lord makes himself known by his acts of justice; ♦︎
   the wicked are snared in the works of their own hands.
17  They shall return to the land of darkness, ♦︎
   all the nations that forget God.
18  For the needy shall not always be forgotten ♦︎
   and the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever.
19  Arise, O Lord, and let not mortals have the upper hand; ♦︎
   let the nations be judged before your face.
20  Put them in fear, O Lord, ♦︎
   that the nations may know themselves to be but mortal.

Reign of Ahaz

28Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign; he reigned for sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord, as his ancestor David had done, ²but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made cast images for the Baals; ³and he made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his sons pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. ⁴He sacrificed and made offerings on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.

Aram and Israel Defeat Judah

5 Therefore the Lord his God gave him into the hand of the king of Aram, who defeated him and took captive a great number of his people and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hand of the king of Israel, who defeated him with great slaughter. ⁶Pekah son of Remaliah killed one hundred and twenty thousand in Judah in one day, all of them valiant warriors, because they had abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors. ⁷And Zichri, a mighty warrior of Ephraim, killed the king’s son Maaseiah, Azrikam the commander of the palace, and Elkanah the next in authority to the king.

Intervention of Oded

8 The people of Israel took captive two hundred thousand of their kin, women, sons, and daughters; they also took much booty from them and brought the booty to Samaria. ⁹But a prophet of the Lord was there, whose name was Oded; he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria, and said to them, ‘Because the Lord, the God of your ancestors, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand, but you have killed them in a rage that has reached up to heaven. ¹⁰Now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, as your slaves. But what have you except sins against the Lord your God? ¹¹Now hear me, and send back the captives whom you have taken from your kindred, for the fierce wrath of the Lord is upon you.’ ¹²Moreover, certain chiefs of the Ephraimites, Azariah son of Johanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai, stood up against those who were coming from the war, ¹³and said to them, ‘You shall not bring the captives in here, for you propose to bring on us guilt against the Lord in addition to our present sins and guilt. For our guilt is already great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.’ ¹⁴So the warriors left the captives and the booty before the officials and all the assembly. ¹⁵Then those who were mentioned by name got up and took the captives, and with the booty they clothed all that were naked among them; they clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them; and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kindred at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.

Assyria Refuses to Help Judah

16 At that time King Ahaz sent to the king^* of Assyria for help. ¹⁷For the Edomites had again invaded and defeated Judah, and carried away captives. ¹⁸And the Philistines had made raids on the cities in the Shephelah and the Negeb of Judah, and had taken Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and Gimzo with its villages; and they settled there. ¹⁹For the Lord brought Judah low because of King Ahaz of Israel, for he had behaved without restraint in Judah and had been faithless to the Lord. ²⁰So King Tilgath-pilneser of Assyria came against him, and oppressed him instead of strengthening him. ²¹For Ahaz plundered the house of the Lord and the houses of the king and of the officials, and gave tribute to the king of Assyria; but it did not help him.

Apostasy and Death of Ahaz

22 In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the Lord—this same King Ahaz. ²³For he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, which had defeated him, and said, ‘Because the gods of the kings of Aram helped them, I will sacrifice to them so that they may help me.’ But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel. ²⁴Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God, and cut in pieces the utensils of the house of God. He shut up the doors of the house of the Lord and made himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem. ²⁵In every city of Judah he made high places to make offerings to other gods, provoking to anger the Lord, the God of his ancestors. ²⁶Now the rest of his acts and all his ways, from first to last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ²⁷Ahaz slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city, in Jerusalem; but they did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel. His son Hezekiah succeeded him.

God’s Promise Realized through Faith

13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, ¹⁷as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’, according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’ ¹⁹He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already^* as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²²Therefore his faith^* ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ ²³Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him’, were written not for his sake alone, ²⁴but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, ²⁵who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.