Morning Devotion

A Song of Ascents.
¹ Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
² O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
³ If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
⁴ But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.
⁵ I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
⁶ my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.
⁷ O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.
⁸ And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. (ESV)

Of Solomon.
¹ Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son!
² May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice!
³ Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness!
⁴ May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor!
⁵ May they fear you while the sun endures, and as long as the moon, throughout all generations!
⁶ May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth!
⁷ In his days may the righteous flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more!
⁸ May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth!
⁹ May desert tribes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust!
¹⁰ May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!
¹¹ May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!
¹² For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper.
¹³ He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy.
¹⁴ From oppression and violence he redeems their life, and precious is their blood in his sight.
¹⁵ Long may he live; may gold of Sheba be given to him! May prayer be made for him continually, and blessings invoked for him all the day!
¹⁶ May there be abundance of grain in the land; on the tops of the mountains may it wave; may its fruit be like Lebanon; and may people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field!
¹⁷ May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun! May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed!
¹⁸ Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.
¹⁹ Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!
²⁰ The prayers of David, the son of Jesse, are ended. (ESV)

¹ But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.
² And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,
³ but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
⁴ While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.
⁵ And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?
⁶ He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,
⁷ that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”
⁸ And they remembered his words,
⁹ and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. (ESV)

¹ Now Samuel died. And all Israel assembled and mourned for him, and they buried him in his house at Ramah. Then David rose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
² And there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
³ Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was discerning and beautiful, but the man was harsh and badly behaved; he was a Calebite.
⁴ David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.
⁵ So David sent ten young men. And David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name.
⁶ And thus you shall greet him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.
⁷ I hear that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing all the time they were in Carmel.
⁸ Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”
⁹ When David’s young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David, and then they waited.
¹⁰ And Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters.
¹¹ Shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I do not know where?”
¹² So David’s young men turned away and came back and told him all this.
¹³ And David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every man of them strapped on his sword. David also strapped on his sword. And about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.
¹⁴ But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to greet our master, and he railed at them.
¹⁵ Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we did not miss anything when we were in the fields, as long as we went with them.
¹⁶ They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.
¹⁷ Now therefore know this and consider what you should do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his house, and he is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”
¹⁸ Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves and two skins of wine and five sheep already prepared and five seahs of parched grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys.
¹⁹ And she said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I come after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
²⁰ And as she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, behold, David and his men came down toward her, and she met them.
²¹ Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good.
²² God do so to the enemies of David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.” (ESV)

¹ But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
³ for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
⁴ For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
⁵ What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
⁸ He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.
⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
¹⁰ According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.
¹¹ For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
¹² Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—
¹³ each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
¹⁴ If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
¹⁵ If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
¹⁶ Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
¹⁸ Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
²⁰ and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
²¹ So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,
²² whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours,
²³ and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. (ESV)

¹ Solomon the son of David established himself in his kingdom, and the LORD his God was with him and made him exceedingly great.
² Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, and to all the leaders in all Israel, the heads of fathers’ houses.
³ And Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon, for the tent of meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the LORD had made in the wilderness, was there.
⁴ (But David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim to the place that David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.)
⁵ Moreover, the bronze altar that Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the LORD. And Solomon and the assembly sought it out.
⁶ And Solomon went up there to the bronze altar before the LORD, which was at the tent of meeting, and offered a thousand burnt offerings on it.
⁷ In that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask what I shall give you.”
⁸ And Solomon said to God, “You have shown great and steadfast love to David my father, and have made me king in his place.
⁹ O LORD God, let your word to David my father be now fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.
¹⁰ Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?”
¹¹ God answered Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked for possessions, wealth, honor, or the life of those who hate you, and have not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge for yourself that you may govern my people over whom I have made you king,
¹² wisdom and knowledge are granted to you. I will also give you riches, possessions, and honor, such as none of the kings had who were before you, and none after you shall have the like.”
¹³ So Solomon came from the high place at Gibeon, from before the tent of meeting, to Jerusalem. And he reigned over Israel.
¹⁴ Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem.
¹⁵ And the king made silver and gold as common in Jerusalem as stone, and he made cedar as plentiful as the sycamore of the Shephelah.
¹⁶ And Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue, and the king’s traders would buy them from Kue for a price.
¹⁷ They imported a chariot from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver, and a horse for 150. Likewise through them these were exported to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria. (ESV)

¹ When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?
² Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?
³ Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
⁴ So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?
⁵ I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers,
⁶ but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers?
⁷ To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?
⁸ But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!
⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
¹² “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
¹³ “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
¹⁴ And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
¹⁶ Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.”
¹⁷ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
²⁰ for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (ESV)

¹ O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth!
² Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!
³ O LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?
⁴ They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast.
⁵ They crush your people, O LORD, and afflict your heritage.
⁶ They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless;
⁷ and they say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.”
⁸ Understand, O dullest of the people! Fools, when will you be wise?
⁹ He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?
¹⁰ He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke? He who teaches man knowledge—
¹¹ the LORD—knows the thoughts of man, that they are but a breath. (ESV)