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Psalm 13

1  How long will you forget me, O Lord; for ever? ♦︎
   How long will you hide your face from me?
2  How long shall I have anguish in my soul
      and grief in my heart, day after day? ♦︎
   How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
3  Look upon me and answer, O Lord my God; ♦︎
   lighten my eyes, lest I sleep in death;
4  Lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed against him,’ ♦︎
   and my foes rejoice that I have fallen.
5  But I put my trust in your steadfast love; ♦︎
   my heart will rejoice in your salvation.
6  I will sing to the Lord, ♦︎
   for he has dealt so bountifully with me.

Vision of a Ram and a Goat

8In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after the one that had appeared to me at first. ²In the vision I was looking and saw myself in Susa the capital, in the province of Elam,^* and I was by the river Ulai.^{* 3}I looked up and saw a ram standing beside the river.^* It had two horns. Both horns were long, but one was longer than the other, and the longer one came up second. ⁴I saw the ram charging westwards and northwards and southwards. All beasts were powerless to withstand it, and no one could rescue from its power; it did as it pleased and became strong.

5 As I was watching, a male goat appeared from the west, coming across the face of the whole earth without touching the ground. The goat had a horn^* between its eyes. ⁶It came towards the ram with the two horns that I had seen standing beside the river,^* and it ran at it with savage force. ⁷I saw it approaching the ram. It was enraged against it and struck the ram, breaking its two horns. The ram did not have power to withstand it; it threw the ram down to the ground and trampled upon it, and there was no one who could rescue the ram from its power. ⁸Then the male goat grew exceedingly great; but at the height of its power, the great horn was broken, and in its place there came up four prominent horns towards the four winds of heaven.

9 Out of one of them came another^* horn, a little one, which grew exceedingly great towards the south, towards the east, and towards the beautiful land. ¹⁰It grew as high as the host of heaven. It threw down to the earth some of the host and some of the stars, and trampled on them. ¹¹Even against the prince of the host it acted arrogantly; it took the regular burnt-offering away from him and overthrew the place of his sanctuary. ¹²Because of wickedness, the host was given over to it together with the regular burnt-offering;^* it cast truth to the ground, and kept prospering in what it did. ¹³Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one that spoke, ‘For how long is this vision concerning the regular burnt-offering, the transgression that makes desolate, and the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled?’^{* 14}And he answered him,^* ‘For two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.’

26 For if we wilfully persist in sin after having received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷but a fearful prospect of judgement, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. ²⁸Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy ‘on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ²⁹How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by those who have spurned the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? ³⁰For we know the one who said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ ³¹It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.