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Psalm 70

Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies

To the leader. Of David, for the memorial offering.
¹ Be pleased, O God, to deliver me.
   O Lord, make haste to help me!
² Let those be put to shame and confusion
   who seek my life.
Let those be turned back and brought to dishonour
   who desire to hurt me.
³ Let those who say, ‘Aha, Aha!’
   turn back because of their shame.

⁴ Let all who seek you
   rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation
   say evermore, ‘God is great!’
⁵ But I am poor and needy;
   hasten to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
   O Lord, do not delay!

Psalm 71

Prayer for Lifelong Protection and Help

¹ In you, O Lord, I take refuge;
   let me never be put to shame.
² In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
   incline your ear to me and save me.
³ Be to me a rock of refuge,
   a strong fortress,^* to save me,
   for you are my rock and my fortress.

⁴ Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
   from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
⁵ For you, O Lord, are my hope,
   my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
⁶ Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
   it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.

⁷ I have been like a portent to many,
   but you are my strong refuge.
⁸ My mouth is filled with your praise,
   and with your glory all day long.
⁹ Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
   do not forsake me when my strength is spent.
¹⁰ For my enemies speak concerning me,
   and those who watch for my life consult together.
¹¹ They say, ‘Pursue and seize that person
   whom God has forsaken,
   for there is no one to deliver.’

¹² O God, do not be far from me;
   O my God, make haste to help me!
¹³ Let my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
   let those who seek to hurt me
   be covered with scorn and disgrace.
¹⁴ But I will hope continually,
   and will praise you yet more and more.
¹⁵ My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
   of your deeds of salvation all day long,
   though their number is past my knowledge.
¹⁶ I will come praising the mighty deeds of the Lord God,
   I will praise your righteousness, yours alone.

¹⁷ O God, from my youth you have taught me,
   and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
¹⁸ So even to old age and grey hairs,
   O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might
   to all the generations to come.^*
Your power ¹⁹and your righteousness, O God,
   reach the high heavens.

You who have done great things,
   O God, who is like you?
²⁰ You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
   will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
   you will bring me up again.
²¹ You will increase my honour,
   and comfort me once again.

²² I will also praise you with the harp
   for your faithfulness, O my God;
I will sing praises to you with the lyre,
   O Holy One of Israel.
²³ My lips will shout for joy
   when I sing praises to you;
   my soul also, which you have rescued.
²⁴ All day long my tongue will talk of your righteous help,
for those who tried to do me harm
   have been put to shame, and disgraced.

Psalm 74

Plea for Help in Time of National Humiliation

A Maskil of Asaph.
¹ O God, why do you cast us off for ever?
   Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
² Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago,
   which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.
   Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.
³ Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
   the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.

⁴ Your foes have roared within your holy place;
   they set up their emblems there.
⁵ At the upper entrance they hacked
   the wooden trellis with axes.^*
6 And then, with hatchets and hammers,
   they smashed all its carved work.
⁷ They set your sanctuary on fire;
   they desecrated the dwelling-place of your name,
   bringing it to the ground.
⁸ They said to themselves, ‘We will utterly subdue them’;
   they burned all the meeting-places of God in the land.

⁹ We do not see our emblems;
   there is no longer any prophet,
   and there is no one among us who knows how long.
¹⁰ How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
   Is the enemy to revile your name for ever?
¹¹ Why do you hold back your hand;
   why do you keep your hand in^* your bosom?

¹² Yet God my King is from of old,
   working salvation in the earth.
¹³ You divided the sea by your might;
   you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.
¹⁴ You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
   you gave him as food^* for the creatures of the wilderness.
¹⁵ You cut openings for springs and torrents;
   you dried up ever-flowing streams.
¹⁶ Yours is the day, yours also the night;
   you established the luminaries^* and the sun.
¹⁷ You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
   you made summer and winter.

¹⁸ Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,
   and an impious people reviles your name.
¹⁹ Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals;
   do not forget the life of your poor for ever.

²⁰ Have regard for your^* covenant,
   for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.
²¹ Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;
   let the poor and needy praise your name.
²² Rise up, O God, plead your cause;
   remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.
²³ Do not forget the clamour of your foes,
   the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.

Defeat and Death of Ahab

29 So the king of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah went up to Ramoth-gilead. ³⁰The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, ‘I will disguise myself and go into battle, but you wear your robes.’ So the king of Israel disguised himself and went into battle. ³¹Now the king of Aram had commanded the thirty-two captains of his chariots, ‘Fight with no one small or great, but only with the king of Israel.’ ³²When the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, ‘It is surely the king of Israel.’ So they turned to fight against him; and Jehoshaphat cried out. ³³When the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him. ³⁴But a certain man drew his bow and unknowingly struck the king of Israel between the scale-armour and the breastplate; so he said to the driver of his chariot, ‘Turn around, and carry me out of the battle, for I am wounded.’ ³⁵The battle grew hot that day, and the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans, until at evening he died; the blood from the wound had flowed into the bottom of the chariot. ³⁶Then about sunset a shout went through the army, ‘Every man to his city, and every man to his country!’

37 So the king died, and was brought to Samaria; they buried the king in Samaria. ³⁸They washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria; the dogs licked up his blood, and the prostitutes washed themselves in it,^* according to the word of the Lord that he had spoken. ³⁹Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house that he built, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel? ⁴⁰So Ahab slept with his ancestors; and his son Ahaziah succeeded him.

Jehoshaphat Reigns over Judah

41 Jehoshaphat son of Asa began to reign over Judah in the fourth year of King Ahab of Israel. ⁴²Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for twenty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi. ⁴³He walked in all the way of his father Asa; he did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord; yet the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and offered incense on the high places. ⁴⁴Jehoshaphat also made peace with the king of Israel.

45 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, and his power that he showed, and how he waged war, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

14 Those who are unspiritual^* do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are discerned spiritually. ¹⁵Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.
¹⁶ ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord
   so as to instruct him?’
But we have the mind of Christ.

On Divisions in the Corinthian Church

3And so, brothers and sisters,^* I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. ²I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, ³for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? ⁴For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human?

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. ⁶I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. ⁸The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labour of each. ⁹For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. ¹¹For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. ¹²Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— ¹³the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. ¹⁴If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵If the work is burned, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.

The Beatitudes

5When Jesus^* saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ²Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

8 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.