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23  When your steps are guided by the Lord ♦︎
   and you delight in his way,
24  Though you stumble, you shall not fall headlong, ♦︎
   for the Lord holds you fast by the hand.
25  I have been young and now am old, ♦︎
   yet never have I seen the righteous forsaken,
      or their children begging their bread.
26  All the day long they are generous in lending, ♦︎
   and their children also shall be blest.
27  Depart from evil and do good ♦︎
   and you shall abide for ever.
28  For the Lord loves the thing that is right ♦︎
   and will not forsake his faithful ones.
29  The unjust shall be destroyed for ever, ♦︎
   and the offspring of the wicked shall be rooted out.
30  The righteous shall possess the land ♦︎
   and dwell in it for ever.
31  The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, ♦︎
   and their tongue speaks the thing that is right.
32  The law of their God is in their heart ♦︎
   and their footsteps shall not slide.
33  The wicked spy on the righteous ♦︎
   and seek occasion to slay them.
34  The Lord will not leave them in their hand, ♦︎
   nor let them be condemned when they are judged.
35  Wait upon the Lord and keep his way; ♦︎
   he will raise you up to possess the land,
      and when the wicked are uprooted, you shall see it.
36  I myself have seen the wicked in great power ♦︎
   and flourishing like a tree in full leaf.
37  I went by and lo, they were gone; ♦︎
   I sought them, but they could nowhere be found.
38  Keep innocence and heed the thing that is right, ♦︎
   for that will bring you peace at the last.
39  But the sinners shall perish together, ♦︎
   and the posterity of the wicked shall be rooted out.
40  The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; ♦︎
   he is their stronghold in the time of trouble.

Saul Proclaimed King

17 Samuel summoned the people to the Lord at Mizpah ¹⁸and said to them,^* ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.” ¹⁹But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said, “No! but set a king over us.” Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans.’

20 Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. ²¹He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the family of the Matrites was taken by lot. Finally he brought the family of the Matrites near man by man,^* and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. ²²So they inquired again of the Lord, ‘Did the man come here?’^* and the Lord said, ‘See, he has hidden himself among the baggage.’ ²³Then they ran and brought him from there. When he took his stand among the people, he was head and shoulders taller than any of them. ²⁴Samuel said to all the people, ‘Do you see the one whom the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.’ And all the people shouted, ‘Long live the king!’

25 Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship; and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people back to their homes.

The Certainty of God’s Promise

13 When God made a promise to Abraham, because he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, ¹⁴saying, ‘I will surely bless you and multiply you.’ ¹⁵And thus Abraham,^* having patiently endured, obtained the promise. ¹⁶Human beings, of course, swear by someone greater than themselves, and an oath given as confirmation puts an end to all dispute. ¹⁷In the same way, when God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it by an oath, ¹⁸so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God would prove false, we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to seize the hope set before us. ¹⁹We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, ²⁰where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered, having become a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.