Night Watch Devotion

¹ He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
² I will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
³ For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
⁷ A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.
⁹ Because you have made the LORD your dwelling place— the Most High, who is my refuge—
¹⁰ no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.
¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
¹² On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.
¹⁴ “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.
¹⁵ When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.” (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.
¹² Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O LORD, and whom you teach out of your law,
¹³ to give him rest from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked.
¹⁴ For the LORD will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage;
¹⁵ for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.
¹⁶ Who rises up for me against the wicked? Who stands up for me against evildoers?
¹⁷ If the LORD had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
¹⁸ When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up.
¹⁹ When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.
²⁰ Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who frame injustice by statute?
²¹ They band together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.
²² But the LORD has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.
²³ He will bring back on them their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness; the LORD our God will wipe them out. (ESV)

¹⁴ for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (ESV)

¹ So Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, “My father and my brothers, with their flocks and herds and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan. They are now in the land of Goshen.”
² And from among his brothers he took five men and presented them to Pharaoh.
³ Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?” And they said to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, as our fathers were.”
⁴ They said to Pharaoh, “We have come to sojourn in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. And now, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.”
⁵ Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you.
⁶ The land of Egypt is before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen, and if you know any able men among them, put them in charge of my livestock.”
⁷ Then Joseph brought in Jacob his father and stood him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
⁸ And Pharaoh said to Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?”
⁹ And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.”
¹⁰ And Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from the presence of Pharaoh.
¹¹ Then Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.
¹² And Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their dependents.
¹³ Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine.
¹⁴ And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.
¹⁵ And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? For our money is gone.”
¹⁶ And Joseph answered, “Give your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone.”
¹⁷ So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, the flocks, the herds, and the donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year.
¹⁸ And when that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land.
¹⁹ Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate.”
²⁰ So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields, because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh’s.
²¹ As for the people, he made servants of them from one end of Egypt to the other.
²² Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land.
²³ Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have this day bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land.
²⁴ And at the harvests you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones.”
²⁵ And they said, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.”
²⁶ So Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth; the land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh’s.
²⁷ Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen. And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly.
²⁸ And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.
²⁹ And when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal kindly and truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt,
³⁰ but let me lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place.” He answered, “I will do as you have said.”
³¹ And he said, “Swear to me”; and he swore to him. Then Israel bowed himself upon the head of his bed. (ESV)

²⁴ “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light,
²⁵ and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
²⁶ And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
²⁷ And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
²⁸ “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.
²⁹ So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.
³⁰ Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
³¹ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
³² “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
³³ Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.
³⁴ It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake.
³⁵ Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—
³⁶ lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.
³⁷ And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” (ESV)

¹ These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
² It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.
³ In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him in commandment to them,
⁴ after he had defeated Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth and in Edrei.
⁵ Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying,
⁶ “The LORD our God said to us in Horeb, ‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain.
⁷ Turn and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negeb and by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
⁸ See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them.’
⁹ “At that time I said to you, ‘I am not able to bear you by myself.
¹⁰ The LORD your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven.
¹¹ May the LORD, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, as he has promised you!
¹² How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife?
¹³ Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads.’
¹⁴ And you answered me, ‘The thing that you have spoken is good for us to do.’
¹⁵ So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers, throughout your tribes.
¹⁶ And I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him.
¹⁷ You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’
¹⁸ And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.
¹⁹ “Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us. And we came to Kadesh-barnea.
²⁰ And I said to you, ‘You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us.
²¹ See, the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’
²² Then all of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come.’
²³ The thing seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe.
²⁴ And they turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied it out.
²⁵ And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us, and brought us word again and said, ‘It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving us.’
²⁶ “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God.
²⁷ And you murmured in your tents and said, ‘Because the LORD hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.
²⁸ Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.”’
²⁹ Then I said to you, ‘Do not be in dread or afraid of them.
³⁰ The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
³¹ and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’
³² Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God,
³³ who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.
³⁴ “And the LORD heard your words and was angered, and he swore,
³⁵ ‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers,
³⁶ except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the LORD!’
³⁷ Even with me the LORD was angry on your account and said, ‘You also shall not go in there.
³⁸ Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.
³⁹ And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it.
⁴⁰ But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’
⁴¹ “Then you answered me, ‘We have sinned against the LORD. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.’ And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country.
⁴² And the LORD said to me, ‘Say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.’
⁴³ So I spoke to you, and you would not listen; but you rebelled against the command of the LORD and presumptuously went up into the hill country.
⁴⁴ Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah.
⁴⁵ And you returned and wept before the LORD, but the LORD did not listen to your voice or give ear to you.
⁴⁶ So you remained at Kadesh many days, the days that you remained there.

¹ “Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the LORD told me. And for many days we traveled around Mount Seir.
² Then the LORD said to me,
³ ‘You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward
⁴ and command the people, “You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful.
⁵ Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.
⁶ You shall purchase food from them with money, that you may eat, and you shall also buy water from them with money, that you may drink.
⁷ For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.”’
⁸ So we went on, away from our brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir, away from the Arabah road from Elath and Ezion-geber. “And we turned and went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab.
⁹ And the LORD said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession.’
¹⁰ (The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim.
¹¹ Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim.
¹² The Horites also lived in Seir formerly, but the people of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and settled in their place, as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the LORD gave to them.)
¹³ ‘Now rise up and go over the brook Zered.’ So we went over the brook Zered.
¹⁴ And the time from our leaving Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them.
¹⁵ For indeed the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from the camp, until they had perished.
¹⁶ “So as soon as all the men of war had perished and were dead from among the people,
¹⁷ the LORD said to me,
¹⁸ ‘Today you are to cross the border of Moab at Ar.
¹⁹ And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.’
²⁰ (It is also counted as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly lived there—but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim—
²¹ a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but the LORD destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they dispossessed them and settled in their place,
²² as he did for the people of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites before them and they dispossessed them and settled in their place even to this day.
²³ As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and settled in their place.) (ESV)

⁵⁷ As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
⁵⁸ And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
⁵⁹ To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
⁶⁰ And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
⁶¹ Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”
⁶² Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

¹ After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go.
² And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
³ Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.
⁴ Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.
⁵ Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’
⁶ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you.
⁷ And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.
⁸ Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you.
⁹ Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
¹⁰ But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say,
¹¹ ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’
¹² I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
¹³ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
¹⁴ But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.
¹⁵ And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
¹⁶ “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
¹⁷ The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!”
¹⁸ And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
¹⁹ Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.
²⁰ Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
²¹ In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
²² All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
²³ Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!
²⁴ For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” (ESV)

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
¹ Blessed is the one who considers the poor! In the day of trouble the LORD delivers him;
² the LORD protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.
³ The LORD sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.
⁴ As for me, I said, “O LORD, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you!”
⁵ My enemies say of me in malice, “When will he die, and his name perish?”
⁶ And when one comes to see me, he utters empty words, while his heart gathers iniquity; when he goes out, he tells it abroad. (ESV)