Evening Devotion

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
¹ O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
² Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
³ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
⁵ Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
⁶ You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
⁷ all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
⁸ the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
⁹ O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (ESV)

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
¹ O LORD, in your strength the king rejoices, and in your salvation how greatly he exults!
² You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah
³ For you meet him with rich blessings; you set a crown of fine gold upon his head.
⁴ He asked life of you; you gave it to him, length of days forever and ever.
⁵ His glory is great through your salvation; splendor and majesty you bestow on him.
⁶ For you make him most blessed forever; you make him glad with the joy of your presence.
⁷ For the king trusts in the LORD, and through the steadfast love of the Most High he shall not be moved.
⁸ Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you.
⁹ You will make them as a blazing oven when you appear. The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them.
¹⁰ You will destroy their descendants from the earth, and their offspring from among the children of man.
¹¹ Though they plan evil against you, though they devise mischief, they will not succeed.
¹² For you will put them to flight; you will aim at their faces with your bows.
¹³ Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength! We will sing and praise your power. (ESV)

⁶ On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
⁷ And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.
⁸ He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.
⁹ It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (ESV)

¹ The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:
² Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
³ Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.
⁴ What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.
⁵ Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.
⁶ For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
⁷ It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white.
⁸ Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth.
⁹ The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, the ministers of the LORD.
¹⁰ The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes.
¹¹ Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.
¹² The vine dries up; the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man.
¹³ Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! Because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
¹⁴ Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.
¹⁵ Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
¹⁶ Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
¹⁷ The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are torn down because the grain has dried up.
¹⁸ How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.
¹⁹ To you, O LORD, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field.
²⁰ Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. (ESV)

¹ Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.
² For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
³ For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
⁴ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
⁵ For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.
⁶ But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down)
⁷ “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
⁸ But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);
⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
¹⁴ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
¹⁵ And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
¹⁶ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”
¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
¹⁸ But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.”
¹⁹ But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says, “I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish nation I will make you angry.”
²⁰ Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”
²¹ But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.” (ESV)

⁴¹ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.”
⁴² Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain about his neck.
⁴³ And he made him ride in his second chariot. And they called out before him, “Bow the knee!” Thus he set him over all the land of Egypt.
⁴⁴ Moreover, Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, and without your consent no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.”
⁴⁵ And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphenath-paneah. And he gave him in marriage Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On. So Joseph went out over the land of Egypt.
⁴⁶ Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt.
⁴⁷ During the seven plentiful years the earth produced abundantly,
⁴⁸ and he gathered up all the food of these seven years, which occurred in the land of Egypt, and put the food in the cities. He put in every city the food from the fields around it.
⁴⁹ And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.
⁵⁰ Before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph. Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera priest of On, bore them to him.
⁵¹ Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.”
⁵² The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”
⁵³ The seven years of plenty that occurred in the land of Egypt came to an end,
⁵⁴ and the seven years of famine began to come, as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.
⁵⁵ When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do.”
⁵⁶ So when the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt.
⁵⁷ Moreover, all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth.

¹ When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?”
² And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.”
³ So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt.
⁴ But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him.
⁵ Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.
⁶ Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground.
⁷ Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.”
⁸ And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.
⁹ And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. And he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.”
¹⁰ They said to him, “No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food.
¹¹ We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies.”
¹² He said to them, “No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.”
¹³ And they said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more.”
¹⁴ But Joseph said to them, “It is as I said to you. You are spies.
¹⁵ By this you shall be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here.
¹⁶ Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.”
¹⁷ And he put them all together in custody for three days.
¹⁸ On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God:
¹⁹ if you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households,
²⁰ and bring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you shall not die.” And they did so.
²¹ Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.”
²² And Reuben answered them, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.”
²³ They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them.
²⁴ Then he turned away from them and wept. And he returned to them and spoke to them. And he took Simeon from them and bound him before their eyes.
²⁵ And Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, and to replace every man’s money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. This was done for them.
²⁶ Then they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed.
²⁷ And as one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money in the mouth of his sack.
²⁸ He said to his brothers, “My money has been put back; here it is in the mouth of my sack!” At this their hearts failed them, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?”
²⁹ When they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying,
³⁰ “The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us and took us to be spies of the land.
³¹ But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we have never been spies.
³² We are twelve brothers, sons of our father. One is no more, and the youngest is this day with our father in the land of Canaan.’
³³ Then the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I shall know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me, and take grain for the famine of your households, and go your way.
³⁴ Bring your youngest brother to me. Then I shall know that you are not spies but honest men, and I will deliver your brother to you, and you shall trade in the land.’”
³⁵ As they emptied their sacks, behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack. And when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were afraid.
³⁶ And Jacob their father said to them, “You have bereaved me of my children: Joseph is no more, and Simeon is no more, and now you would take Benjamin. All this has come against me.”
³⁷ Then Reuben said to his father, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.”
³⁸ But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is the only one left. If harm should happen to him on the journey that you are to make, you would bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol.” (ESV)

²² Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.
²³ And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,
²⁴ but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.
²⁵ And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.
²⁶ But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear.
²⁷ But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
²⁸ And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
²⁹ He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”
³¹ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
³² And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
³³ And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
³⁴ And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret.
³⁵ And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick
³⁶ and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.

¹ Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,
² “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”
³ He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
⁴ For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
⁵ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”
⁶ he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.
⁷ You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
⁸ “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
⁹ in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (ESV)

To the choirmaster: according to The Sheminith. A Psalm of David.
¹ Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.
² Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; 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 tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?”
⁵ “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the LORD; “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
⁶ The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.
⁷ You, O LORD, will keep them; you will guard us from this generation forever.
⁸ On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of man. (ESV)