Psalm 85
Common English Bible
Psalm 85
For the music leader. Of the Korahites. A psalm.
85 Lord, you’ve been kind to your land;
you’ve changed Jacob’s circumstances for the better.
2 You’ve forgiven your people’s wrongdoing;
you’ve covered all their sins. Selah
3 You’ve stopped being furious;
you’ve turned away from your burning anger.
4 You, the God who can save us, restore us!
Stop being angry with us!
5 Will you be mad at us forever?
Will you prolong your anger from one generation to the next?
6 Won’t you bring us back to life again
so that your people can rejoice in you?
7 Show us your faithful love, Lord!
Give us your salvation!
8 Let me hear what the Lord God says,
because he speaks peace to his people and to his faithful ones.
Don’t let them return to foolish ways.
9 God’s salvation is very close to those who honor him
so that his glory can live in our land.
10 Faithful love and truth have met;
righteousness and peace have kissed.
11 Truth springs up from the ground;
righteousness gazes down from heaven.
12 Yes, the Lord gives what is good,
and our land yields its produce.
13 Righteousness walks before God,
making a road for his steps.
Hosea 1:11-2:15
Common English Bible
11 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be gathered together, and they will choose one head. They will become fruitful in the land.[a] The day will be a wonderful one for Jezreel.
Proclamation of wrongdoing
2 [b] Say to your brother, My People, and to your sister, Compassion:
2 Level a charge against your mother; plead with her!
She is not my wife,
and I am not her husband.
Let her remove prostitution from her presence,
and adultery from between her breasts,
3 or else I will strip her naked
and expose her as on the day she was born.
I will make her like a desert,
and turn her into a dry land,
and make her die of thirst.
4 I will also have no compassion on her children
because they are children of prostitution.
5 Their mother has played the prostitute;
she who conceived them has behaved shamefully.
She said, “I will seek out my lovers;
they give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my linen cloth, my oil and my drink.”
Divine correction
6 Therefore, I will line her path with thorns;
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she can’t find her paths.
7 She will go after her lovers,
but she won’t catch up with them;
she will seek them,
but she won’t find them.
Then she will say,
“I will return to my first husband,
for I had it better then than now.”
8 She didn’t know that I gave her
the corn, the new wine, and the fresh oil,
and that I gave her much silver,
and gold that they used for Baal.
9 So now I will take back
my corn in its time,
and my wine in its season;
and I will take away my wool and my linen cloth,
which were to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her nakedness
in plain view of her lovers,
and no one will rescue her from me.
11 I will end all her religious celebrations,
her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbath days,
and all her sacred seasons.
12 I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
“These are my pay,
which my lovers have given to me.”
I will change them into a forest,
and the wild animals will eat them.
13 I will punish her for the days dedicated to the Baals,
when she offered sweet-smelling sacrifices to them
and dressed herself up with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
and forgot me, says the Lord.
Promises: restoration and covenant love
14 Therefore, I will charm her,
and bring her into the desert,
and speak tenderly to her heart.
15 From there I will give her vineyards,
and make the Achor Valley a door of hope.
There she will respond to me as in the days of her youth,
like the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
Footnotes
- Hosea 1:11 Or They will go up from the land.
- Hosea 2:1 2:1-23=Heb 2:3-25
Luke 8:22-25
Common English Bible
Jesus calms the sea
22 One day Jesus and his disciples boarded a boat. He said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” So they set sail.
23 While they were sailing, he fell asleep. Gale-force winds swept down on the lake. The boat was filling up with water and they were in danger. 24 So they went and woke Jesus, shouting, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” But he got up and gave orders to the wind and the violent waves. The storm died down and it was calm.
25 He said to his disciples, “Where is your faith?”
Filled with awe and wonder, they said to each other, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him!”
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Psalm 138
Common English Bible
Psalm 138
Of David.
138 I give thanks to you with all my heart, Lord.[a]
I sing your praise before all other gods.
2 I bow toward your holy temple
and thank your name
for your loyal love and faithfulness
because you have made your name and word
greater than everything else.[b]
3 On the day I cried out, you answered me.
You encouraged me with inner strength.[c]
4 Let all the earth’s rulers give thanks to you, Lord,
when they hear what you say.
5 Let them sing about the Lord’s ways
because the Lord’s glory is so great!
6 Even though the Lord is high,
he can still see the lowly,
but God keeps his distance from the arrogant.
7 Whenever I am in deep trouble,
you make me live again;
you send your power against my enemies’ wrath;
you save me with your strong hand.
8 The Lord will do all this for my sake.
Your faithful love lasts forever, Lord!
Don’t let go of what your hands
have made.
Footnotes
- Psalm 138:1 LXX, Syr, Tg, DSS (11QPsa); MT lacks Lord.
- Psalm 138:2 Correction; Heb uncertain
- Psalm 138:3 Heb uncertain
Esther 4
Common English Bible
A crisis for the Jews
4 When Mordecai learned what had been done, he tore his clothes, dressed in mourning clothes, and put ashes on his head. Then he went out into the heart of the city and cried out loudly and bitterly. 2 He went only as far as the King’s Gate because it was against the law for anyone to pass through it wearing mourning clothes. 3 At the same time, in every province and place where the king’s order and his new law arrived, a very great sadness came over the Jews. They gave up eating and spent whole days weeping and crying out loudly in pain. Many Jews lay on the ground in mourning clothes and ashes. 4 When Esther’s female servants and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, the queen’s whole body showed how upset she was. She sent everyday clothes for Mordecai to wear instead of mourning clothes, but he rejected them.
5 Esther then sent for Hathach, one of the royal eunuchs whose job it was to wait on her. She ordered him to go to Mordecai and find out what was going on and why he was acting this way. 6 Hathach went out to Mordecai, to the city square in front of the King’s Gate. 7 Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him. He spelled out the exact amount of silver that Haman promised to pay into the royal treasury. It was in exchange for the destruction of the Jews. 8 He also gave Hathach a copy of the law made public in Susa concerning the Jews’ destruction so that Hathach could show it to Esther and report it to her. Through him Mordecai ordered her to go to the king to seek his kindness and his help for her people. 9 Hathach came back and told Esther what Mordecai had said.
10 In reply Esther ordered Hathach to tell Mordecai: 11 “All the king’s officials and the people in his provinces know that there’s a single law in a case like this. Any man or woman who comes to the king in the inner courtyard without being called is to be put to death. Only the person to whom the king holds out the gold scepter may live. In my case, I haven’t been called to come to the king for the past thirty days.”
12 When they told Mordecai Esther’s words, 13 he had them respond to Esther: “Don’t think for one minute that, unlike all the other Jews, you’ll come out of this alive simply because you are in the palace. 14 In fact, if you don’t speak up at this very important time, relief and rescue will appear for the Jews from another place, but you and your family will die. But who knows? Maybe it was for a moment like this that you came to be part of the royal family.”
15 Esther sent back this word to Mordecai: 16 “Go, gather all the Jews who are in Susa and tell them to give up eating to help me be brave. They aren’t to eat or drink anything for three whole days, and I myself will do the same, along with my female servants. Then, even though it’s against the law, I will go to the king; and if I am to die, then die I will.” 17 So Mordecai left where he was and did exactly what Esther had ordered him.
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Luke 8:22-25
Common English Bible
Jesus calms the sea
22 One day Jesus and his disciples boarded a boat. He said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” So they set sail.
23 While they were sailing, he fell asleep. Gale-force winds swept down on the lake. The boat was filling up with water and they were in danger. 24 So they went and woke Jesus, shouting, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” But he got up and gave orders to the wind and the violent waves. The storm died down and it was calm.
25 He said to his disciples, “Where is your faith?”
Filled with awe and wonder, they said to each other, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him!”
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