Night Watch 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)

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 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.
² Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.
³ For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them,
⁴ but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.
⁵ As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept.
⁶ But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’
⁷ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps.
⁸ And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’
⁹ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’
¹⁰ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.
¹¹ Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’
¹² But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’
¹³ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (ESV)

¹ As soon as all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts melted and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of Israel.
² At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.”
³ So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.
⁴ And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt.
⁵ Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised.
⁶ For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of the LORD; the LORD swore to them that he would not let them see the land that the LORD had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
⁷ So it was their children, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised. For they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way.
⁸ When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed.
⁹ And the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.
¹⁰ While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho.
¹¹ And the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.
¹² And the manna ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land. And there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.
¹³ When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?”
¹⁴ And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?”
¹⁵ And the commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
¹ Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in.
² And the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor.
³ You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days.
⁴ Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.
⁵ And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.” (ESV)

¹ At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort,
² a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God.
³ About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius.”
⁴ And he stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.
⁵ And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter.
⁶ He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea.”
⁷ When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him,
⁸ and having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa.
⁹ The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.
¹⁰ And he became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance
¹¹ and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.
¹² In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.
¹³ And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
¹⁴ But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”
¹⁵ And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.”
¹⁶ This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
¹⁷ Now while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, the men who were sent by Cornelius, having made inquiry for Simon’s house, stood at the gate (ESV)

¹ After the death of Ahab, Moab rebelled against Israel.
² Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice in his upper chamber in Samaria, and lay sick; so he sent messengers, telling them, “Go, inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this sickness.”
³ But the angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, ‘Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?
⁴ Now therefore thus says the LORD, You shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’” So Elijah went.
⁵ The messengers returned to the king, and he said to them, “Why have you returned?”
⁶ And they said to him, “There came a man to meet us, and said to us, ‘Go back to the king who sent you, and say to him, Thus says the LORD, Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’”
⁷ He said to them, “What kind of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things?”
⁸ They answered him, “He wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist.” And he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”
⁹ Then the king sent to him a captain of fifty men with his fifty. He went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and said to him, “O man of God, the king says, ‘Come down.’”
¹⁰ But Elijah answered the captain of fifty, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.
¹¹ Again the king sent to him another captain of fifty men with his fifty. And he answered and said to him, “O man of God, this is the king’s order, ‘Come down quickly!’”
¹² But Elijah answered them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” Then the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty.
¹³ Again the king sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty. And the third captain of fifty went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah and entreated him, “O man of God, please let my life, and the life of these fifty servants of yours, be precious in your sight.
¹⁴ Behold, fire came down from heaven and consumed the two former captains of fifty men with their fifties, but now let my life be precious in your sight.”
¹⁵ Then the angel of the LORD said to Elijah, “Go down with him; do not be afraid of him.” So he arose and went down with him to the king
¹⁶ and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have sent messengers to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron—is it because there is no God in Israel to inquire of his word?—therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.’”
¹⁷ So he died according to the word of the LORD that Elijah had spoken. Jehoram became king in his place in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, because Ahaziah had no son.
¹⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Ahaziah that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel?

¹ Now when the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal.
² And Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here, for the LORD has sent me as far as Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel.
³ And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?” And he said, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”
⁴ Elijah said to him, “Elisha, please stay here, for the LORD has sent me to Jericho.” But he said, “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So they came to Jericho.
⁵ The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”
⁶ Then Elijah said to him, “Please stay here, for the LORD has sent me to the Jordan.” But he said, “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them went on.
⁷ Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan.
⁸ Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.
⁹ When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.”
¹⁰ And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.”
¹¹ And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
¹² And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.
¹³ And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.
¹⁴ Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, “Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.
¹⁵ Now when the sons of the prophets who were at Jericho saw him opposite them, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” And they came to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.
¹⁶ And they said to him, “Behold now, there are with your servants fifty strong men. Please let them go and seek your master. It may be that the Spirit of the LORD has caught him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley.” And he said, “You shall not send.”
¹⁷ But when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, “Send.” They sent therefore fifty men. And for three days they sought him but did not find him.
¹⁸ And they came back to him while he was staying at Jericho, and he said to them, “Did I not say to you, ‘Do not go’?”
¹⁹ Now the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.”
²⁰ He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.
²¹ Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the LORD, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.”
²² So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.
²³ He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!”
²⁴ And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.
²⁵ From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria. (ESV)

¹ After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia.
² When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.
³ There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.
⁴ Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus.
⁵ These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas,
⁶ but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.
⁷ On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
⁸ There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered.
⁹ And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.
¹⁰ But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.”
¹¹ And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed.
¹² And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.
¹³ But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.
¹⁴ And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene.
¹⁵ And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios; the next day we touched at Samos; and the day after that we went to Miletus.
¹⁶ For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.
¹⁷ Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.
¹⁸ And when they came to him, he said to them: “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia,
¹⁹ serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews;
²⁰ how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house,
²¹ testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
²² And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there,
²³ except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.
²⁴ But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
²⁵ And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.
²⁶ Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all,
²⁷ for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
²⁸ Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.
²⁹ I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;
³⁰ and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
³¹ Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.
³² And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
³³ I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel.
³⁴ You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me.
³⁵ In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
³⁶ And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all.
³⁷ And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him,
³⁸ being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship. (ESV)

⁴⁰ How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert!
⁴¹ They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
⁴² They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,
⁴³ when he performed his signs in Egypt and his marvels in the fields of Zoan.
⁴⁴ He turned their rivers to blood, so that they could not drink of their streams.
⁴⁵ He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them.
⁴⁶ He gave their crops to the destroying locust and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
⁴⁷ He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamores with frost.
⁴⁸ He gave over their cattle to the hail and their flocks to thunderbolts.
⁴⁹ He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels.
⁵⁰ He made a path for his anger; he did not spare them from death, but gave their lives over to the plague.
⁵¹ He struck down every firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
⁵² Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
⁵³ He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
⁵⁴ And he brought them to his holy land, to the mountain which his right hand had won.
⁵⁵ He drove out nations before them; he apportioned them for a possession and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents. (ESV)