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⁶¹Therefore devote yourselves completely to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”

⁶²Then the king, and all Israel with him, offered sacrifice before the Lord. ⁶³Solomon offered as sacrifices of well-being to the Lord twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord. ⁶⁴The same day the king consecrated the middle of the court that was in front of the house of the Lord; for there he offered the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat pieces of the sacrifices of well-being, because the bronze altar that was before the Lord was too small to receive the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and the fat pieces of the sacrifices of well-being. ⁶⁵So Solomon held the festival at that time, and all Israel with him—a great assembly, people from Lebo-hamath to the Wadi of Egypt—before the Lord our God, seven days. ⁶⁶On the eighth day he sent the people away; and they blessed the king, and went to their tents, joyful and in good spirits because of all the goodness that the Lord had shown to his servant David and to his people Israel.

Psalm 95

¹O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

²Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

³For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

⁴In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.

⁵The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed.

⁶O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

⁷For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!

⁸Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,

⁹when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

¹⁰For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.”

¹¹Therefore in my anger I swore, “They shall not enter my rest.”

Psalm 66

¹Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth;

²sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise.

³Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you.

⁴All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name.” Selah

⁵Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds among mortals.

⁶He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There we rejoiced in him,

⁷who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations— let the rebellious not exalt themselves. Selah

⁸Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard,

⁹who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.

¹⁰For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.

¹¹You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs;

¹²you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.

¹³I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows,

¹⁴those that my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.

¹⁵I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah

¹⁶Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me.

¹⁷I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled with my tongue.

¹⁸If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

¹⁹But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the words of my prayer.

²⁰Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.

²Happy is the mortal who does this, the one who holds it fast, who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it, and refrains from doing any evil.

³Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” ⁴For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, ⁵I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. ⁶And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant— ⁷these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. ⁸Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.

¹⁸For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” ²⁰Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²²For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

⁹For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. ¹¹May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully

¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. ¹³He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. ¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; ¹⁶for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.