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)

Of David.
¹ I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise;
² I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.
³ On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.
⁴ All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth,
⁵ and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD.
⁶ For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.
⁷ Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.
⁸ The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands. (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)

¹ “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder,
² and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’
³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
⁴ You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.
⁵ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
⁶ “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known,
⁷ some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other,
⁸ you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him.
⁹ But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.
¹⁰ You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
¹¹ And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.
¹² “If you hear in one of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving you to dwell there,
¹³ that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known,
¹⁴ then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you,
¹⁵ you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword.
¹⁶ You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again.
¹⁷ None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers,
¹⁸ if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the LORD your God. (ESV)

¹ And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.
² The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother;
³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
⁴ Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
⁵ These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans,
⁶ but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
⁷ And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
⁸ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay.
⁹ Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts,
¹⁰ no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food.
¹¹ And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.
¹² As you enter the house, greet it.
¹³ And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
¹⁴ And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town.
¹⁵ Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.
¹⁶ “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
¹⁷ Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues,
¹⁸ and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.
¹⁹ When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.
²⁰ For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
²¹ Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death,
²² and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
²³ When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. (ESV)

¹⁵ Thus says the LORD: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”
¹⁶ Thus says the LORD: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work, declares the LORD, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
¹⁷ There is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children shall come back to their own country.
¹⁸ I have heard Ephraim grieving, ‘You have disciplined me, and I was disciplined, like an untrained calf; bring me back that I may be restored, for you are the LORD my God.
¹⁹ For after I had turned away, I relented, and after I was instructed, I struck my thigh; I was ashamed, and I was confounded, because I bore the disgrace of my youth.’
²⁰ Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the LORD.
²¹ “Set up road markers for yourself; make yourself guideposts; consider well the highway, the road by which you went. Return, O virgin Israel, return to these your cities.
²² How long will you waver, O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing on the earth: a woman encircles a man.”
²³ Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Once more they shall use these words in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I restore their fortunes: “‘The LORD bless you, O habitation of righteousness, O holy hill!’
²⁴ And Judah and all its cities shall dwell there together, and the farmers and those who wander with their flocks.
²⁵ For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.”
²⁶ At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me.
²⁷ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.
²⁸ And it shall come to pass that as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring harm, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the LORD.
²⁹ In those days they shall no longer say: “‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
³⁰ But everyone shall die for his own iniquity. Each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.
³¹ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,
³² not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.
³³ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
³⁵ Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD of hosts is his name:
³⁶ “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.”
³⁷ Thus says the LORD: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the LORD.”
³⁸ “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when the city shall be rebuilt for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.
³⁹ And the measuring line shall go out farther, straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah.
⁴⁰ The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the LORD. It shall not be plucked up or overthrown anymore forever.”

¹ The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.
² At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah.
³ For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying, “Why do you prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the LORD: Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall capture it;
⁴ Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye.
⁵ And he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I visit him, declares the LORD. Though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed’?”
⁶ Jeremiah said, “The word of the LORD came to me:
⁷ Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.’
⁸ Then Hanamel my cousin came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the LORD, and said to me, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.
⁹ “And I bought the field at Anathoth from Hanamel my cousin, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver.
¹⁰ I signed the deed, sealed it, got witnesses, and weighed the money on scales.
¹¹ Then I took the sealed deed of purchase, containing the terms and conditions and the open copy.
¹² And I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my cousin, in the presence of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, and in the presence of all the Judeans who were sitting in the court of the guard.
¹³ I charged Baruch in their presence, saying,
¹⁴ ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time.
¹⁵ For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.’
¹⁶ “After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to the LORD, saying:
¹⁷ ‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.
¹⁸ You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the LORD of hosts,
¹⁹ great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.
²⁰ You have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and to this day in Israel and among all mankind, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day.
²¹ You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror.
²² And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey.
²³ And they entered and took possession of it. But they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore you have made all this disaster come upon them.
²⁴ Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it.
²⁵ Yet you, O Lord GOD, have said to me, “Buy the field for money and get witnesses”—though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.’” (ESV)

¹ Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you,
² and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.
³ But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
⁴ And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command.
⁵ May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.
⁶ Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.
⁷ For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you,
⁸ nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.
⁹ It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.
¹⁰ For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
¹¹ For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.
¹² Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.
¹³ As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.
¹⁴ If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.
¹⁵ Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
¹⁶ Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.
¹⁷ I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine; it is the way I write.
¹⁸ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. (ESV)

¹ These also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied.
² It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.
³ As the heavens for height, and the earth for depth, so the heart of kings is unsearchable.
⁴ Take away the dross from the silver, and the smith has material for a vessel;
⁵ take away the wicked from the presence of the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness.
⁶ Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great,
⁷ for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble. What your eyes have seen
⁸ do not hastily bring into court, for what will you do in the end, when your neighbor puts you to shame?
⁹ Argue your case with your neighbor himself, and do not reveal another’s secret,
¹⁰ lest he who hears you bring shame upon you, and your ill repute have no end. (ESV)