Morning Devotion

¹ Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights!
² Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts!
³ Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars!
⁴ Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
⁵ Let them praise the name of the LORD! For he commanded and they were created.
⁶ And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.
⁷ Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps,
⁸ fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word!
⁹ Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
¹⁰ Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds!
¹¹ Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!
¹² Young men and maidens together, old men and children!
¹³ Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven.
¹⁴ He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him. Praise the LORD! (ESV)

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
¹ In you, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me!
² Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily! Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me!
³ For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me;
⁴ you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge.
⁵ Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.
⁶ I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the LORD.
⁷ I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul,
⁸ and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.
⁹ Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.
¹⁰ For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.
¹¹ Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.
¹² I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.
¹³ For I hear the whispering of many— terror on every side!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.
¹⁴ But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.”
¹⁵ My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
¹⁶ Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love!
¹⁷ O LORD, let me not be put to shame, for I call upon you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go silently to Sheol.
¹⁸ Let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt.
¹⁹ Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind!
²⁰ In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues.
²¹ Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city.
²² I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.
²³ Love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
²⁴ Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD! (ESV)

¹ “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
² After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
³ And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
⁴ and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’
⁵ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.
⁶ And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’
⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’
⁸ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’
⁹ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius.
¹⁰ Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius.
¹¹ And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house,
¹² saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’
¹³ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?
¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you.
¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’
¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first last.” (ESV)

¹ Ask rain from the LORD in the season of the spring rain, from the LORD who makes the storm clouds, and he will give them showers of rain, to everyone the vegetation in the field.
² For the household gods utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; they tell false dreams and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd.
³ “My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders; for the LORD of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah, and will make them like his majestic steed in battle.
⁴ From him shall come the cornerstone, from him the tent peg, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler—all of them together.
⁵ They shall be like mighty men in battle, trampling the foe in the mud of the streets; they shall fight because the LORD is with them, and they shall put to shame the riders on horses.
⁶ “I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the LORD their God and I will answer them.
⁷ Then Ephraim shall become like a mighty warrior, and their hearts shall be glad as with wine. Their children shall see it and be glad; their hearts shall rejoice in the LORD.
⁸ “I will whistle for them and gather them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as many as they were before.
⁹ Though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and with their children they shall live and return.
¹⁰ I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria, and I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, till there is no room for them.
¹¹ He shall pass through the sea of troubles and strike down the waves of the sea, and all the depths of the Nile shall be dried up. The pride of Assyria shall be laid low, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart.
¹² I will make them strong in the LORD, and they shall walk in his name,” declares the LORD.
¹ Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars!
² Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the glorious trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been felled!
³ The sound of the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is ruined! The sound of the roar of the lions, for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined! (ESV)

¹ But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.
² For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,
⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
⁵ having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
⁶ For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,
⁷ always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
⁸ Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith.
⁹ But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
¹⁰ You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,
¹¹ my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.
¹² Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
¹³ while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it
¹⁵ and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
¹⁶ All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
¹⁷ that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (ESV)

¹ Then Job answered and said:
² “How long will you torment me and break me in pieces with words?
³ These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?
⁴ And even if it be true that I have erred, my error remains with myself.
⁵ If indeed you magnify yourselves against me and make my disgrace an argument against me,
⁶ know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me.
⁷ Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered; I call for help, but there is no justice.
⁸ He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths.
⁹ He has stripped from me my glory and taken the crown from my head.
¹⁰ He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.
¹¹ He has kindled his wrath against me and counts me as his adversary.
¹² His troops come on together; they have cast up their siege ramp against me and encamp around my tent.
¹³ “He has put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.
¹⁴ My relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me.
¹⁵ The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
¹⁶ I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.
¹⁷ My breath is strange to my wife, and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
¹⁸ Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me.
¹⁹ All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.
²⁰ My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
²¹ Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!
²² Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?
²³ “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
²⁴ Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever!
²⁵ For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
²⁶ And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God,
²⁷ whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
²⁸ If you say, ‘How we will pursue him!’ and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’
²⁹ be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.”

¹ Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:
² “Therefore my thoughts answer me, because of my haste within me.
³ I hear censure that insults me, and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.
⁴ Do you not know this from of old, since man was placed on earth,
⁵ that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment?
⁶ Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds,
⁷ he will perish forever like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’
⁸ He will fly away like a dream and not be found; he will be chased away like a vision of the night.
⁹ The eye that saw him will see him no more, nor will his place any more behold him.
¹⁰ His children will seek the favor of the poor, and his hands will give back his wealth.
¹¹ His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.
¹² “Though evil is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue,
¹³ though he is loath to let it go and holds it in his mouth,
¹⁴ yet his food is turned in his stomach; it is the venom of cobras within him.
¹⁵ He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly.
¹⁶ He will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of a viper will kill him.
¹⁷ He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.
¹⁸ He will give back the fruit of his toil and will not swallow it down; from the profit of his trading he will get no enjoyment.
¹⁹ For he has crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build.
²⁰ “Because he knew no contentment in his belly, he will not let anything in which he delights escape him.
²¹ There was nothing left after he had eaten; therefore his prosperity will not endure.
²² In the fullness of his sufficiency he will be in distress; the hand of everyone in misery will come against him.
²³ To fill his belly to the full, God will send his burning anger against him and rain it upon him into his body.
²⁴ He will flee from an iron weapon; a bronze arrow will strike him through.
²⁵ It is drawn forth and comes out of his body; the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder; terrors come upon him.
²⁶ Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures; a fire not fanned will devour him; what is left in his tent will be consumed.
²⁷ The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him.
²⁸ The possessions of his house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God’s wrath.
²⁹ This is the wicked man’s portion from God, the heritage decreed for him by God.”

¹ Then Job answered and said:
² “Keep listening to my words, and let this be your comfort.
³ Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on.
⁴ As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient?
⁵ Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth.
⁶ When I remember, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.
⁷ Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?
⁸ Their offspring are established in their presence, and their descendants before their eyes.
⁹ Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them.
¹⁰ Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and does not miscarry.
¹¹ They send out their little boys like a flock, and their children dance.
¹² They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.
¹³ They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.
¹⁴ They say to God, ‘Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your ways.
¹⁵ What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’
¹⁶ Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
¹⁷ “How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger?
¹⁸ That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?
¹⁹ You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’ Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
²⁰ Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
²¹ For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off?
²² Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those who are on high?
²³ One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure,
²⁴ his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist.
²⁵ Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity.
²⁶ They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.
²⁷ “Behold, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me.
²⁸ For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
²⁹ Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony
³⁰ that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath?
³¹ Who declares his way to his face, and who repays him for what he has done?
³² When he is carried to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb.
³³ The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all mankind follows after him, and those who go before him are innumerable.
³⁴ How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.” (ESV)

¹ Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,
² saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.
³ If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”
⁴ This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
⁵ “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
⁶ The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.
⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.
⁸ Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
⁹ And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
¹⁰ And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”
¹¹ And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”
¹² And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
¹³ He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
¹⁴ And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.
¹⁵ But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant,
¹⁶ and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”
¹⁷ And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. (ESV)

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD, who addressed the words of this song to the LORD on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:
¹ I love you, O LORD, my strength.
² The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
³ I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
⁴ The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me;
⁵ the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.
⁶ In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears. (ESV)