1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! 2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long.
3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals, in whom there is no help. 4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth; on that very day their plans perish.
5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, 6 who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever; 7 who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free; 8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. 9 The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
10 The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!
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21 The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. 2 All deeds are right in the sight of the doer, but the Lord weighs the heart. 3 To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. 4 Haughty eyes and a proud heart— the lamp of the wicked—are sin. 5 The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to want. 6 The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a fleeting vapor and a snare[a] of death. 7 The violence of the wicked will sweep them away, because they refuse to do what is just. 8 The way of the guilty is crooked, but the conduct of the pure is right. 9 It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious wife. 10 The souls of the wicked desire evil; their neighbors find no mercy in their eyes. 11 When a scoffer is punished, the simple become wiser; when the wise are instructed, they increase in knowledge. 12 The Righteous One observes the house of the wicked; he casts the wicked down to ruin. 13 If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and not be heard. 14 A gift in secret averts anger; and a concealed bribe in the bosom, strong wrath. 15 When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but dismay to evildoers. 16 Whoever wanders from the way of understanding will rest in the assembly of the dead. 17 Whoever loves pleasure will suffer want; whoever loves wine and oil will not be rich. 18 The wicked is a ransom for the righteous, and the faithless for the upright. 19 It is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and fretful wife. 20 Precious treasure remains[b] in the house of the wise, but the fool devours it. 21 Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life[c] and honor. 22 One wise person went up against a city of warriors and brought down the stronghold in which they trusted. 23 To watch over mouth and tongue is to keep out of trouble. 24 The proud, haughty person, named “Scoffer,” acts with arrogant pride. 25 The craving of the lazy person is fatal, for lazy hands refuse to labor.
19 For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.
1 Help, O Lord, for there is no longer anyone who is godly; the faithful have disappeared from humankind. 2 They utter lies to each other; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.
3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, 4 those who say, “With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are our own—who is our master?”
5 “Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now rise up,” says the Lord; “I will place them in the safety for which they long.” 6 The promises of the Lord are promises that are pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.
7 You, O Lord, will protect us; you will guard us from this generation forever. 8 On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among humankind.
16 Then Jesus[a] said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ 3 Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ 7 Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth[b] so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.[c]
10 “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth,[d] who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.[a]35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
1 Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord; praise the name of the Lord.
2 Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time on and forevermore. 3 From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised. 4 The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens.
5 Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, 6 who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? 7 He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap, 8 to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. 9 He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!
6 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
7 “Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me. 8 Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? 9 Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?
10 “Deck yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. 11 Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on all who are proud, and abase them. 12 Look on all who are proud, and bring them low; tread down the wicked where they stand. 13 Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below.[b] 14 Then I will also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can give you victory.
&
Job Is Humbled and Satisfied
42 Then Job answered the Lord:
2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ 5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
WE NOW ANSWER… “I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME.”
3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
1 Truly God is good to the upright,[a] to those who are pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. 3 For I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pain; their bodies are sound and sleek. 5 They are not in trouble as others are; they are not plagued like other people. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them like a garment. 7 Their eyes swell out with fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. 8 They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. 9 They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues range over the earth.
10 Therefore the people turn and praise them,[b] and find no fault in them.[c] 11 And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?” 12 Such are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. 13 All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. 14 For all day long I have been plagued, and am punished every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will talk on in this way,” I would have been untrue to the circle of your children. 16 But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, 17 until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end. 18 Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. 19 How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! 20 They are[d] like a dream when one awakes; on awaking you despise their phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, 22 I was stupid and ignorant; I was like a brute beast toward you. 23 Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me with honor.[e] 25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength[f] of my heart and my portion forever.
27 Indeed, those who are far from you will perish; you put an end to those who are false to you. 28 But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, to tell of all your works.
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