Midday Devotion

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
¹ The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
² Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
³ There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.
⁴ Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
⁵ which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
⁶ Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
⁸ the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
⁹ the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
¹⁰ More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
¹¹ Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
¹² Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
¹³ Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
¹⁴ Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (ESV)

A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.
¹ O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath!
² For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me.
³ There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin.
⁴ For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.
⁵ My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness,
⁶ I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning.
⁷ For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh.
⁸ I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
⁹ O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you.
¹⁰ My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
¹¹ My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off.
¹² Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long.
¹³ But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth.
¹⁴ I have become like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes.
¹⁵ But for you, O LORD, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
¹⁶ For I said, “Only let them not rejoice over me, who boast against me when my foot slips!”
¹⁷ For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.
¹⁸ I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.
¹⁹ But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
²⁰ Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good.
²¹ Do not forsake me, O LORD! O my God, be not far from me!
²² Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation! (ESV)

¹ I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (ESV)

⁶ When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land.
⁷ And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel.
⁸ And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110 years.
⁹ And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.
¹⁰ And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.
¹¹ And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals.
¹² And they abandoned the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the LORD to anger.
¹³ They abandoned the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth.
¹⁴ So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he gave them over to plunderers, who plundered them. And he sold them into the hand of their surrounding enemies, so that they could no longer withstand their enemies.
¹⁵ Whenever they marched out, the hand of the LORD was against them for harm, as the LORD had warned, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were in terrible distress.
¹⁶ Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
¹⁷ Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the LORD, and they did not do so.
¹⁸ Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them.
¹⁹ But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down to them. They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways.
²⁰ So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he said, “Because this people have transgressed my covenant that I commanded their fathers and have not obeyed my voice,
²¹ I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died,
²² in order to test Israel by them, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the LORD as their fathers did, or not.”
²³ So the LORD left those nations, not driving them out quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua. (ESV)

¹³ Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem,
¹⁴ but they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.
¹⁵ After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.”
¹⁶ So Paul stood up, and motioning with his hand said: “Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen.
¹⁷ The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it.
¹⁸ And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness.
¹⁹ And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance.
²⁰ All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.
²¹ Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.
²² And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’
²³ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.
²⁴ Before his coming, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.
²⁵ And as John was finishing his course, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but behold, after me one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie.’
²⁶ “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation.
²⁷ For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.
²⁸ And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed.
²⁹ And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.
³⁰ But God raised him from the dead,
³¹ and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.
³² And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers,
³³ this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’
³⁴ And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way, “‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
³⁵ Therefore he says also in another psalm, “‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
³⁶ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption,
³⁷ but he whom God raised up did not see corruption.
³⁸ Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you,
³⁹ and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
⁴⁰ Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about:
⁴¹ “‘Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’” (ESV)

²³ In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years.
²⁴ And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
²⁵ He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.
²⁶ For the LORD saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel.
²⁷ But the LORD had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.
²⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam and all that he did, and his might, how he fought, and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Judah in Israel, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
²⁹ And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, the kings of Israel, and Zechariah his son reigned in his place.

¹ In the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel, Azariah the son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign.
² He was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.
³ And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done.
⁴ Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.
⁵ And the LORD touched the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and he lived in a separate house. And Jotham the king’s son was over the household, governing the people of the land.
⁶ Now the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
⁷ And Azariah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Jotham his son reigned in his place.
⁸ In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel in Samaria six months.
⁹ And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
¹⁰ Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him and struck him down at Ibleam and put him to death and reigned in his place.
¹¹ Now the rest of the deeds of Zechariah, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
¹² (This was the promise of the LORD that he gave to Jehu, “Your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.” And so it came to pass.)
¹³ Shallum the son of Jabesh began to reign in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah, and he reigned one month in Samaria.
¹⁴ Then Menahem the son of Gadi came up from Tirzah and came to Samaria, and he struck down Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria and put him to death and reigned in his place.
¹⁵ Now the rest of the deeds of Shallum, and the conspiracy that he made, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
¹⁶ At that time Menahem sacked Tiphsah and all who were in it and its territory from Tirzah on, because they did not open it to him. Therefore he sacked it, and he ripped open all the women in it who were pregnant.
¹⁷ In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem the son of Gadi began to reign over Israel, and he reigned ten years in Samaria.
¹⁸ And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart all his days from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
¹⁹ Pul the king of Assyria came against the land, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that he might help him to confirm his hold on the royal power.
²⁰ Menahem exacted the money from Israel, that is, from all the wealthy men, fifty shekels of silver from every man, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back and did not stay there in the land.
²¹ Now the rest of the deeds of Menahem and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?
²² And Menahem slept with his fathers, and Pekahiah his son reigned in his place.
²³ In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned two years.
²⁴ And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
²⁵ And Pekah the son of Remaliah, his captain, conspired against him with fifty men of the people of Gilead, and struck him down in Samaria, in the citadel of the king’s house with Argob and Arieh; he put him to death and reigned in his place.
²⁶ Now the rest of the deeds of Pekahiah and all that he did, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
²⁷ In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twenty years.
²⁸ And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.
²⁹ In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria.
³⁰ Then Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah and struck him down and put him to death and reigned in his place, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.
³¹ Now the rest of the acts of Pekah and all that he did, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
³² In the second year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, Jotham the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, began to reign.
³³ He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jerusha the daughter of Zadok.
³⁴ And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah had done.
³⁵ Nevertheless, the high places were not removed. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. He built the upper gate of the house of the LORD.
³⁶ Now the rest of the acts of Jotham and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
³⁷ In those days the LORD began to send Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah against Judah.
³⁸ Jotham slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father, and Ahaz his son reigned in his place. (ESV)

²³ So on the next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp, and they entered the audience hall with the military tribunes and the prominent men of the city. Then, at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in.
²⁴ And Festus said, “King Agrippa and all who are present with us, you see this man about whom the whole Jewish people petitioned me, both in Jerusalem and here, shouting that he ought not to live any longer.
²⁵ But I found that he had done nothing deserving death. And as he himself appealed to the emperor, I decided to go ahead and send him.
²⁶ But I have nothing definite to write to my lord about him. Therefore I have brought him before you all, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that, after we have examined him, I may have something to write.
²⁷ For it seems to me unreasonable, in sending a prisoner, not to indicate the charges against him.”

¹ So Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense:
² “I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews,
³ especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.
⁴ “My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews.
⁵ They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee.
⁶ And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers,
⁷ to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king!
⁸ Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?
⁹ “I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
¹⁰ And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them.
¹¹ And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
¹² “In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests.
¹³ At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me.
¹⁴ And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
¹⁵ And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
¹⁶ But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you,
¹⁷ delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you
¹⁸ to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
¹⁹ “Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,
²⁰ but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.
²¹ For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.
²² To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass:
²³ that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.” (ESV)

¹⁸ Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
¹⁹ It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud.
²⁰ Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD.
²¹ The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.
²² Good sense is a fountain of life to him who has it, but the instruction of fools is folly.
²³ The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious and adds persuasiveness to his lips.
²⁴ Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.
²⁵ There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
²⁶ A worker’s appetite works for him; his mouth urges him on.
²⁷ A worthless man plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire. (ESV)