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Psalm 26

1  Give judgement for me, O Lord,
      for I have walked with integrity; ♦︎
   I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered.
2  Test me, O Lord, and try me; ♦︎
   examine my heart and my mind.
3  For your love is before my eyes; ♦︎
   I have walked in your truth.
4  I have not joined the company of the false, ♦︎
   nor consorted with the deceitful.
5  I hate the gathering of evildoers ♦︎
   and I will not sit down with the wicked.
6  I will wash my hands in innocence, O Lord, ♦︎
   that I may go about your altar,
7  To make heard the voice of thanksgiving ♦︎
   and tell of all your wonderful deeds.
8  Lord, I love the house of your habitation ♦︎
   and the place where your glory abides.
9  Sweep me not away with sinners, ♦︎
   nor my life with the bloodthirsty,
10  Whose hands are full of wicked schemes ♦︎
   and their right hand full of bribes.
11  As for me, I will walk with integrity; ♦︎
   redeem me, Lord, and be merciful to me.
12  My foot stands firm; ♦︎
   in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

Psalm 28

1  To you I call, O Lord my rock;
      be not deaf to my cry, ♦︎
   lest, if you do not hear me,
      I become like those who go down to the Pit.
2  Hear the voice of my prayer when I cry out to you, ♦︎
   when I lift up my hands to your holy of holies.
3  Do not snatch me away with the wicked,
      with the evildoers, ♦︎
   who speak peaceably with their neighbours,
      while malice is in their hearts.
4  Repay them according to their deeds ♦︎
   and according to the wickedness of their devices.
5  Reward them according to the work of their hands ♦︎
   and pay them their just deserts.
6  They take no heed of the Lord’s doings,
      nor of the works of his hands; ♦︎
   therefore shall he break them down
      and not build them up.
7  Blessed be the Lord, ♦︎
   for he has heard the voice of my prayer.
8  The Lord is my strength and my shield; ♦︎
   my heart has trusted in him and I am helped;
9  Therefore my heart dances for joy ♦︎
   and in my song will I praise him.
10  The Lord is the strength of his people, ♦︎
   a safe refuge for his anointed.
11  Save your people and bless your inheritance; ♦︎
   shepherd them and carry them for ever.

6 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made ⁷and sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. ⁸Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; ⁹but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. ¹⁰He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; ¹¹and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. ¹²Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him any more.

13 In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and saw that the face of the ground was drying. ¹⁴In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. ¹⁵Then God said to Noah, ¹⁶‘Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.’ ¹⁸So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹And every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out of the ark by families.

God’s Promise to Noah

20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. ²¹And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odour, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
²² As long as the earth endures,
   seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
   shall not cease.’

7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus^* offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. ⁸Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; ⁹and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, ¹⁰having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Warning against Falling Away

11 About this^* we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. ¹²For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; ¹³for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. ¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.