Night Watch Devotion

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.
⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
⁶ Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
¹¹ Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
¹⁸ Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem;
¹⁹ then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar. (ESV)

¹ Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
² The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
³ “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
⁴ He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
⁵ Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,
⁶ “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.”
⁷ I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
⁸ Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
⁹ You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
¹⁰ Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
¹¹ Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
¹² Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. (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 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you,
² and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul,
³ then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.
⁴ If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.
⁵ And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.
⁶ And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
⁷ And the LORD your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you.
⁸ And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD and keep all his commandments that I command you today.
⁹ The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers,
¹⁰ when you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
¹¹ “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
¹² It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’
¹³ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’
¹⁴ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
¹⁵ “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.
¹⁶ If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
¹⁷ But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them,
¹⁸ I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.
¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,
²⁰ loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” (ESV)

¹ Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.
² And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
³ And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?”
⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
⁵ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”
⁸ He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”
¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
¹¹ But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.
¹² For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”
¹³ Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people,
¹⁴ but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
¹⁵ And he laid his hands on them and went away. (ESV)

⁷ The Lord has scorned his altar, disowned his sanctuary; he has delivered into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they raised a clamor in the house of the LORD as on the day of festival.
⁸ The LORD determined to lay in ruins the wall of the daughter of Zion; he stretched out the measuring line; he did not restrain his hand from destroying; he caused rampart and wall to lament; they languished together.
⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground; he has ruined and broken her bars; her king and princes are among the nations; the law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the LORD.
¹⁰ The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground in silence; they have thrown dust on their heads and put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground.
¹¹ My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out to the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and babies faint in the streets of the city.
¹² They cry to their mothers, “Where is bread and wine?” as they faint like a wounded man in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom.
¹³ What can I say for you, to what compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your ruin is vast as the sea; who can heal you?
¹⁴ Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.
¹⁵ All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
¹⁶ All your enemies rail against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: “We have swallowed her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have it; we see it!”
¹⁷ The LORD has done what he purposed; he has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago; he has thrown down without pity; he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes.
¹⁸ Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite!
¹⁹ “Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the night watches! Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord! Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.”
²⁰ Look, O LORD, and see! With whom have you dealt thus? Should women eat the fruit of their womb, the children of their tender care? Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
²¹ In the dust of the streets lie the young and the old; my young women and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger, slaughtering without pity.
²² You summoned as if to a festival day my terrors on every side, and on the day of the anger of the LORD no one escaped or survived; those whom I held and raised my enemy destroyed.

¹ I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath;
² he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light;
³ surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
⁴ He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones;
⁵ he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation;
⁶ he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
⁷ He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy;
⁸ though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer;
⁹ he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
¹⁰ He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;
¹¹ he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate;
¹² he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
¹³ He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver;
¹⁴ I have become the laughingstock of all my people, the object of their taunts all day long.
¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
¹⁶ He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes;
¹⁷ my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is;
¹⁸ so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD.”
¹⁹ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
²⁰ My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
²¹ But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
²² The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
²⁵ The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
²⁶ It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
²⁷ It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
²⁸ Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;
²⁹ let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope;
³⁰ let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.
³¹ For the Lord will not cast off forever,
³² for, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
³³ for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.
³⁴ To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth,
³⁵ to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High,
³⁶ to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve.
³⁷ Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
³⁸ Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
³⁹ Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? (ESV)

¹ Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our beloved fellow worker (ESV)

Ayin
¹²¹ I have done what is just and right; do not leave me to my oppressors.
¹²² Give your servant a pledge of good; let not the insolent oppress me.
¹²³ My eyes long for your salvation and for the fulfillment of your righteous promise.
¹²⁴ Deal with your servant according to your steadfast love, and teach me your statutes.
¹²⁵ I am your servant; give me understanding, that I may know your testimonies!
¹²⁶ It is time for the LORD to act, for your law has been broken.
¹²⁷ Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold.
¹²⁸ Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right; I hate every false way. (ESV)