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Psalm 81

1  Sing merrily to God our strength, ♦︎
   shout for joy to the God of Jacob.
2  Take up the song and sound the timbrel, ♦︎
   the tuneful lyre with the harp.
3  Blow the trumpet at the new moon, ♦︎
   as at the full moon, upon our solemn feast day.
4  For this is a statute for Israel, ♦︎
   a law of the God of Jacob,
5  The charge he laid on the people of Joseph, ♦︎
   when they came out of the land of Egypt.
6  I heard a voice I did not know, that said: ♦︎
   ‘I eased their shoulder from the burden;
      their hands were set free from bearing the load.
7  ‘You called upon me in trouble and I delivered you; ♦︎
   I answered you from the secret place of thunder
      and proved you at the waters of Meribah.
8  ‘Hear, O my people, and I will admonish you: ♦︎
   O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9  ‘There shall be no strange god among you; ♦︎
   you shall not worship a foreign god.
10  ‘I am the Lord your God,
      who brought you up from the land of Egypt; ♦︎
   open your mouth wide and I shall fill it.’
11  But my people would not hear my voice ♦︎
   and Israel would not obey me.
12  So I sent them away in the stubbornness of their hearts, ♦︎
   and let them walk after their own counsels.
13  O that my people would listen to me, ♦︎
   that Israel would walk in my ways!
14  Then I should soon put down their enemies ♦︎
   and turn my hand against their adversaries.
15  Those who hate the Lord would be humbled before him, ♦︎
   and their punishment would last for ever.
16  But Israel would I feed with the finest wheat ♦︎
   and with honey from the rock would I satisfy them.

Moses Makes New Tablets

34The Lord said to Moses, ‘Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you broke. ²Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me, on the top of the mountain. ³No one shall come up with you, and do not let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain; and do not let flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.’ ⁴So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. ⁵The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, ‘The Lord.’^{* 6}The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed,
‘The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
⁷ keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,^*
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.’
⁸And Moses quickly bowed his head towards the earth, and worshipped. ⁹He said, ‘If now I have found favour in your sight, O Lord, I pray, let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.’

The Covenant Renewed

10 He said: I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform marvels, such as have not been performed in all the earth or in any nation; and all the people among whom you live shall see the work of the Lord; for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

11 Observe what I command you today. See, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ¹²Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you. ¹³You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles^{* 14}(for you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God). ¹⁵You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone among them will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice. ¹⁶And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods.

17 You shall not make cast idols.

13 We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers. ¹⁴For you, brothers and sisters,^* became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, ¹⁵who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets,^* and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone ¹⁶by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God’s wrath has overtaken them at last.^*

Paul’s Desire to Visit the Thessalonians Again

17 As for us, brothers and sisters,^* when, for a short time, we were made orphans by being separated from you—in person, not in heart—we longed with great eagerness to see you face to face. ¹⁸For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again—but Satan blocked our way. ¹⁹For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? ²⁰Yes, you are our glory and joy!