God’s Covenant with Abram

15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ ² But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’^{[a] 3} And Abram said, ‘You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’ ⁴ But the word of the Lord came to him, ‘This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.’ ⁵ He brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ ⁶ And he believed the Lord; and the Lord^[b] reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Psalm 110

Assurance of Victory for God’s Priest-King

Of David. A Psalm.

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, ¹⁴ saying, ‘I will surely bless you and multiply you.’ ¹⁵ And thus Abraham,^[a] having patiently endured, obtained the promise. ¹⁶ Human beings, of course, swear by someone greater than themselves, and an oath given as confirmation puts an end to all dispute. ¹⁷ In 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, ¹⁸ so 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. ¹⁹ We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, ²⁰ where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered, having become a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵ Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ ¹⁸ The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ ²⁰ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ ²¹ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. ²² After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.