Bible Browser

Psalm 5

Trust in God for Deliverance from Enemies

To the leader: for the flutes. A Psalm of David.
¹ Give ear to my words, O Lord;
   give heed to my sighing.
² Listen to the sound of my cry,
   my King and my God,
   for to you I pray.
³ O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
   in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch.

⁴ For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
   evil will not sojourn with you.
⁵ The boastful will not stand before your eyes;
   you hate all evildoers.
⁶ You destroy those who speak lies;
   the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful.

⁷ But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love,
   will enter your house,
I will bow down towards your holy temple
   in awe of you.
⁸ Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness
   because of my enemies;
   make your way straight before me.

⁹ For there is no truth in their mouths;
   their hearts are destruction;
their throats are open graves;
   they flatter with their tongues.
¹⁰ Make them bear their guilt, O God;
   let them fall by their own counsels;
because of their many transgressions cast them out,
   for they have rebelled against you.

¹¹ But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
   let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them,
   so that those who love your name may exult in you.
¹² For you bless the righteous, O Lord;
   you cover them with favour as with a shield.

Psalm 147

Praise for God’s Care for Jerusalem

¹ Praise the Lord!
How good it is to sing praises to our God;
   for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.
² The Lord builds up Jerusalem;
   he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
³ He heals the broken-hearted,
   and binds up their wounds.
⁴ He determines the number of the stars;
   he gives to all of them their names.
⁵ Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
   his understanding is beyond measure.
⁶ The Lord lifts up the downtrodden;
   he casts the wicked to the ground.

⁷ Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;
   make melody to our God on the lyre.
⁸ He covers the heavens with clouds,
   prepares rain for the earth,
   makes grass grow on the hills.
⁹ He gives to the animals their food,
   and to the young ravens when they cry.
¹⁰ His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
   nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;^*
11 but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
   in those who hope in his steadfast love.

¹² Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
   Praise your God, O Zion!

Aaron’s Miraculous Rod

8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ⁹‘When Pharaoh says to you, “Perform a wonder”, then you shall say to Aaron, “Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh, and it will become a snake.” ’ ¹⁰So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did as the Lord had commanded; Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. ¹¹Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same by their secret arts. ¹²Each one threw down his staff, and they became snakes; but Aaron’s staff swallowed up theirs. ¹³Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said.

The First Plague: Water Turned to Blood

14 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. ¹⁵Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water; stand by at the river bank to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was turned into a snake. ¹⁶Say to him, “The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you to say, ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness.’ But until now you have not listened. ¹⁷Thus says the Lord, ‘By this you shall know that I am the Lord.’ See, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall be turned to blood. ¹⁸The fish in the river shall die, the river itself shall stink, and the Egyptians shall be unable to drink water from the Nile.” ’ ¹⁹The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to Aaron, “Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over its rivers, its canals, and its ponds, and all its pools of water—so that they may become blood; and there shall be blood throughout the whole land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.” ’

20 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and of his officials he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the river, and all the water in the river was turned into blood, ²¹and the fish in the river died. The river stank so that the Egyptians could not drink its water, and there was blood throughout the whole land of Egypt. ²²But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. ²³Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. ²⁴And all the Egyptians had to dig along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the river.

14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. ¹⁵For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; ¹⁶to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? ¹⁷For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many;^* but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.

Ministers of the New Covenant

3Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? ²You yourselves are our letter, written on our^* hearts, to be known and read by all; ³and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ towards God. ⁵Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, ⁶who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.