Midday Devotion

A Song of Ascents.
¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
² My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
³ He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴ Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
⁵ The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
⁷ The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
⁸ The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. (ESV)

A Psalm of Asaph.
¹ The Mighty One, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
² Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.
³ Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest.
⁴ He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
⁵ “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
⁶ The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Selah
⁷ “Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God.
⁸ Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; your burnt offerings are continually before me.
⁹ I will not accept a bull from your house or goats from your folds.
¹⁰ For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
¹¹ I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.
¹² “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.
¹³ Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
¹⁴ Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High,
¹⁵ and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
¹⁶ But to the wicked God says: “What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips?
¹⁷ For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you.
¹⁸ If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you keep company with adulterers.
¹⁹ “You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit.
²⁰ You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son.
²¹ These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
²² “Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
²³ The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” (ESV)

¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”
¹⁴ I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
¹⁵ “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (ESV)

¹ Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice.
² Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
³ Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.
⁴ The heart of the hasty will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak distinctly.
⁵ The fool will no more be called noble, nor the scoundrel said to be honorable.
⁶ For the fool speaks folly, and his heart is busy with iniquity, to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning the LORD, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
⁷ As for the scoundrel—his devices are evil; he plans wicked schemes to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right.
⁸ But he who is noble plans noble things, and on noble things he stands.
⁹ Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech.
¹⁰ In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come.
¹¹ Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist.
¹² Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine,
¹³ for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city.
¹⁴ For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;
¹⁵ until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
¹⁶ Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
¹⁷ And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.
¹⁸ My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
¹⁹ And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low.
²⁰ Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free. (ESV)

¹ “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
² Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
³ Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
⁴ Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
⁵ The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
⁶ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
⁷ “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
⁸ “‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
⁹ Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you.
¹⁰ Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.
¹¹ I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.
¹² The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.
¹³ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
¹⁴ “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.
¹⁵ “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!
¹⁶ So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
¹⁷ For you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing,” not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.
¹⁹ Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
²⁰ Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
²¹ The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
²² He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” (ESV)

¹⁷ You have wearied the LORD with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

¹ “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.
² But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.
³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD.
⁴ Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.
⁵ “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.
⁶ “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
⁷ From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’
⁸ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions.
⁹ You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.
¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
¹¹ I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts.
¹² Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts.
¹³ “Your words have been hard against me, says the LORD. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’
¹⁴ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts?
¹⁵ And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’”
¹⁶ Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name.
¹⁷ “They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.
¹⁸ Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

¹ “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
² But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.
³ And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.
⁴ “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
⁵ “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.
⁶ And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” (ESV)

¹ After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree.
² Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea,
³ saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
⁴ And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
⁵ 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad,
⁶ 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,
⁷ 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,
⁸ 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.
⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
¹¹ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
¹² saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?”
¹⁴ I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
¹⁵ “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (ESV)

Of David.
¹ Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle;
² he is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me.
³ O LORD, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him?
⁴ Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
⁵ Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down! Touch the mountains so that they smoke!
⁶ Flash forth the lightning and scatter them; send out your arrows and rout them!
⁷ Stretch out your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from the many waters, from the hand of foreigners,
⁸ whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. (ESV)