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Psalm 44

1  We have heard with our ears, O God, our forebears have told us, ♦︎
   all that you did in their days, in time of old;
2  How with your hand you drove out nations and planted us in, ♦︎
   and broke the power of peoples and set us free.
3  For not by their own sword did our ancestors take the land ♦︎
   nor did their own arm save them,
4  But your right hand, your arm, and the light of your countenance, ♦︎
   because you were gracious to them.
5  You are my King and my God, ♦︎
   who commanded salvation for Jacob.
6  Through you we drove back our adversaries; ♦︎
   through your name we trod down our foes.
7  For I did not trust in my bow; ♦︎
   it was not my own sword that saved me;
8  It was you that saved us from our enemies ♦︎
   and put our adversaries to shame.
9  We gloried in God all the day long, ♦︎
   and were ever praising your name.
10  But now you have rejected us and brought us to shame, ♦︎
   and go not out with our armies.
11  You have made us turn our backs on our enemies, ♦︎
   and our enemies have despoiled us.
12  You have made us like sheep to be slaughtered, ♦︎
   and have scattered us among the nations.
13  You have sold your people for a pittance ♦︎
   and made no profit on their sale.
14  You have made us the taunt of our neighbours, ♦︎
   the scorn and derision of those that are round about us.
15  You have made us a byword among the nations; ♦︎
   among the peoples they wag their heads.
16  My confusion is daily before me, ♦︎
   and shame has covered my face,
17  At the taunts of the slanderer and reviler, ♦︎
   at the sight of the enemy and avenger.
18  All this has come upon us,
      though we have not forgotten you ♦︎
   and have not played false to your covenant.
19  Our hearts have not turned back, ♦︎
   nor our steps gone out of your way,
20  Yet you have crushed us in the haunt of jackals, ♦︎
   and covered us with the shadow of death.
21  If we have forgotten the name of our God, ♦︎
   or stretched out our hands to any strange god,
22  Will not God search it out? ♦︎
   For he knows the secrets of the heart.
23  But for your sake are we killed all the day long, ♦︎
   and are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
24  Rise up! Why sleep, O Lord? ♦︎
   Awake, and do not reject us for ever.
25  Why do you hide your face ♦︎
   and forget our grief and oppression?
26  Our soul is bowed down to the dust; ♦︎
   our belly cleaves to the earth.
27  Rise up, O Lord, to help us ♦︎
   and redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

36 ^*Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ³⁷Tell Eleazar son of Aaron the priest to take the censers out of the blaze; then scatter the fire far and wide. ³⁸For the censers of these sinners have become holy at the cost of their lives. Make them into hammered plates as a covering for the altar, for they presented them before the Lord and they became holy. Thus they shall be a sign to the Israelites. ³⁹So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers that had been presented by those who were burned; and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar— ⁴⁰a reminder to the Israelites that no outsider, who is not of the descendants of Aaron, shall approach to offer incense before the Lord, so as not to become like Korah and his company—just as the Lord had said to him through Moses.

41 On the next day, however, the whole congregation of the Israelites rebelled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, ‘You have killed the people of the Lord.’ ⁴²And when the congregation had assembled against them, Moses and Aaron turned towards the tent of meeting; the cloud had covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared. ⁴³Then Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting, ⁴⁴and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ⁴⁵‘Get away from this congregation, so that I may consume them in a moment.’ And they fell on their faces. ⁴⁶Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take your censer, put fire on it from the altar and lay incense on it, and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them. For wrath has gone out from the Lord; the plague has begun.’ ⁴⁷So Aaron took it as Moses had ordered, and ran into the middle of the assembly, where the plague had already begun among the people. He put on the incense, and made atonement for the people. ⁴⁸He stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stopped. ⁴⁹Those who died by the plague were fourteen thousand seven hundred, besides those who died in the affair of Korah. ⁵⁰When the plague was stopped, Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

God’s Promise Realized through Faith

13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, ¹⁷as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ¹⁸Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become ‘the father of many nations’, according to what was said, ‘So numerous shall your descendants be.’ ¹⁹He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already^* as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²²Therefore his faith^* ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ ²³Now the words, ‘it was reckoned to him’, were written not for his sake alone, ²⁴but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, ²⁵who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.