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)

A Miktam of David.
¹ Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
² I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”
³ As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.
⁴ The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.
⁵ The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.
⁶ The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
⁷ I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.
⁸ I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
⁹ Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.
¹⁰ For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.
¹¹ You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (ESV)

²³ Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (ESV)

¹ The word of the LORD came to me:
² “Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him
³ and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal.
⁴ And I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords.
⁵ Persia, Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet;
⁶ Gomer and all his hordes; Beth-togarmah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes—many peoples are with you.
⁷ “Be ready and keep ready, you and all your hosts that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them.
⁸ After many days you will be mustered. In the latter years you will go against the land that is restored from war, the land whose people were gathered from many peoples upon the mountains of Israel, which had been a continual waste. Its people were brought out from the peoples and now dwell securely, all of them.
⁹ You will advance, coming on like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your hordes, and many peoples with you.
¹⁰ “Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme
¹¹ and say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,’
¹² to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth.
¹³ Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and all its leaders will say to you, ‘Have you come to seize spoil? Have you assembled your hosts to carry off plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to seize great spoil?’
¹⁴ “Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord GOD: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it?
¹⁵ You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army.
¹⁶ You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.
¹⁷ “Thus says the Lord GOD: Are you he of whom I spoke in former days by my servants the prophets of Israel, who in those days prophesied for years that I would bring you against them?
¹⁸ But on that day, the day that Gog shall come against the land of Israel, declares the Lord GOD, my wrath will be roused in my anger.
¹⁹ For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare, On that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.
²⁰ The fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field and all creeping things that creep on the ground, and all the people who are on the face of the earth, shall quake at my presence. And the mountains shall be thrown down, and the cliffs shall fall, and every wall shall tumble to the ground.
²¹ I will summon a sword against Gog on all my mountains, declares the Lord GOD. Every man’s sword will be against his brother.
²² With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him, and I will rain upon him and his hordes and the many peoples who are with him torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur.
²³ So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD. (ESV)

¹ Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?
² For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
³ Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
⁴ Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
⁵ For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
⁶ But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
⁷ What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
⁸ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
⁹ I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
¹⁰ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
¹¹ For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
¹² So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
¹³ Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
¹⁴ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. (ESV)

¹ Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him.
² And when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God’s camp!” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.
³ And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother in the land of Seir, the country of Edom,
⁴ instructing them, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have sojourned with Laban and stayed until now.
⁵ I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male servants, and female servants. I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’”
⁶ And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.”
⁷ Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps,
⁸ thinking, “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.”
⁹ And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’
¹⁰ I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.
¹¹ Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children.
¹² But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”
¹³ So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau,
¹⁴ two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
¹⁵ thirty milking camels and their calves, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.
¹⁶ These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.”
¹⁷ He instructed the first, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’
¹⁸ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. And moreover, he is behind us.’”
¹⁹ He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him,
²⁰ and you shall say, ‘Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”
²¹ So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.
²² The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.
²³ He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had.
²⁴ And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.
²⁵ When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.
²⁶ Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
²⁷ And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”
²⁸ Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
²⁹ Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him.
³⁰ So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”
³¹ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
³² Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip on the sinew of the thigh.

¹ And Jacob lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, Esau was coming, and four hundred men with him. So he divided the children among Leah and Rachel and the two female servants.
² And he put the servants with their children in front, then Leah with her children, and Rachel and Joseph last of all.
³ He himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother.
⁴ But Esau ran to meet him and embraced him and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.
⁵ And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, “Who are these with you?” Jacob said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.”
⁶ Then the servants drew near, they and their children, and bowed down.
⁷ Leah likewise and her children drew near and bowed down. And last Joseph and Rachel drew near, and they bowed down.
⁸ Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” Jacob answered, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.”
⁹ But Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.”
¹⁰ Jacob said, “No, please, if I have found favor in your sight, then accept my present from my hand. For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.
¹¹ Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough.” Thus he urged him, and he took it.
¹² Then Esau said, “Let us journey on our way, and I will go ahead of you.”
¹³ But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are frail, and that the nursing flocks and herds are a care to me. If they are driven hard for one day, all the flocks will die.
¹⁴ Let my lord pass on ahead of his servant, and I will lead on slowly, at the pace of the livestock that are ahead of me and at the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”
¹⁵ So Esau said, “Let me leave with you some of the people who are with me.” But he said, “What need is there? Let me find favor in the sight of my lord.”
¹⁶ So Esau returned that day on his way to Seir.
¹⁷ But Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built himself a house and made booths for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.
¹⁸ And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan-aram, and he camped before the city.
¹⁹ And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent.
²⁰ There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel. (ESV)

²² Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw.
²³ And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?”
²⁴ But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”
²⁵ Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.
²⁶ And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?
²⁷ And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.
²⁸ But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
²⁹ Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.
³⁰ Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
³¹ Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
³² And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
³³ “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.
³⁴ You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
³⁵ The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
³⁶ I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,
³⁷ for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
³⁸ Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”
³⁹ But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
⁴⁰ For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
⁴² The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
⁴³ “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.
⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.
⁴⁵ Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.” (ESV)

¹ My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
² making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
³ yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
⁴ if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
⁵ then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
⁶ For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
⁷ he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
⁸ guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.
⁹ Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;
¹⁰ for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
¹¹ discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, (ESV)