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)

To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths. A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.
¹ Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me;
² my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly.
³ When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
⁴ In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?
⁵ All day long they injure my cause; all their thoughts are against me for evil.
⁶ They stir up strife, they lurk; they watch my steps, as they have waited for my life.
⁷ For their crime will they escape? In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!
⁸ You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?
⁹ Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me.
¹⁰ In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise,
¹¹ in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?
¹² I must perform my vows to you, O God; I will render thank offerings to you.
¹³ For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life. (ESV)

A Psalm of Asaph.
¹ Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
² But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.
³ For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
⁴ For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.
⁵ They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.
⁷ Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
⁸ They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
⁹ They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.
¹¹ And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
¹² Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
¹³ All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
¹⁵ If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
¹⁶ But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
¹⁷ until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
¹⁸ Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.
¹⁹ How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!
²⁰ Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
²¹ When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,
²² I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.
²³ Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
²⁷ For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
²⁸ But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

A Maskil of Asaph.
¹ O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
² Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage! Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.
³ Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!
⁴ Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place; they set up their own signs for signs.
⁵ They were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees.
⁶ And all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
⁷ They set your sanctuary on fire; they profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground.
⁸ They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
⁹ We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long.
¹⁰ How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
¹¹ Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!
¹² Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.
¹³ You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
¹⁴ You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
¹⁵ You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams.
¹⁶ Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
¹⁷ You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.
¹⁸ Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs, and a foolish people reviles your name.
¹⁹ Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts; do not forget the life of your poor forever.
²⁰ Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
²¹ Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame; let the poor and needy praise your name.
²² Arise, O God, defend your cause; remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!
²³ Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!

To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Psalm of Asaph. A Song.
¹ We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.
² “At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity.
³ When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars. Selah
⁴ I say to the boastful, ‘Do not boast,’ and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horn;
⁵ do not lift up your horn on high, or speak with haughty neck.’”
⁶ For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up,
⁷ but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.
⁸ For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.
⁹ But I will declare it forever; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.
¹⁰ All the horns of the wicked I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up. (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)

¹³ In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.
¹⁴ In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out.
¹⁵ Then God said to Noah,
¹⁶ “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you.
¹⁷ Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
¹⁸ So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him.
¹⁹ Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.
²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
²¹ And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
²² While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
¹ And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
² The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.
³ Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
⁴ But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
⁵ And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
⁶ “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
⁷ And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
⁸ Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,
⁹ “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you,
¹⁰ and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.
¹¹ I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:
¹³ I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
¹⁴ When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,
¹⁵ I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
¹⁶ When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
¹⁷ God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” (ESV)

¹ Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land.
² And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them:
³ “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow.
⁴ And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.
⁵ Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil.
⁶ And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away.
⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain.
⁸ And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
⁹ And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
¹⁰ And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.
¹¹ And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables,
¹² so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”
¹³ And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?
¹⁴ The sower sows the word.
¹⁵ And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.
¹⁶ And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy.
¹⁷ And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.
¹⁸ And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word,
¹⁹ but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
²⁰ But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” (ESV)

¹ Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood. Two cubits and a half was its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height.
² And he overlaid it with pure gold inside and outside, and made a molding of gold around it.
³ And he cast for it four rings of gold for its four feet, two rings on its one side and two rings on its other side.
⁴ And he made poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold
⁵ and put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark.
⁶ And he made a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half was its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth.
⁷ And he made two cherubim of gold. He made them of hammered work on the two ends of the mercy seat,
⁸ one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat he made the cherubim on its two ends.
⁹ The cherubim spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat were the faces of the cherubim.
¹⁰ He also made the table of acacia wood. Two cubits was its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height.
¹¹ And he overlaid it with pure gold, and made a molding of gold around it.
¹² And he made a rim around it a handbreadth wide, and made a molding of gold around the rim.
¹³ He cast for it four rings of gold and fastened the rings to the four corners at its four legs.
¹⁴ Close to the frame were the rings, as holders for the poles to carry the table.
¹⁵ He made the poles of acacia wood to carry the table, and overlaid them with gold.
¹⁶ And he made the vessels of pure gold that were to be on the table, its plates and dishes for incense, and its bowls and flagons with which to pour drink offerings.
¹⁷ He also made the lampstand of pure gold. He made the lampstand of hammered work. Its base, its stem, its cups, its calyxes, and its flowers were of one piece with it.
¹⁸ And there were six branches going out of its sides, three branches of the lampstand out of one side of it and three branches of the lampstand out of the other side of it;
¹⁹ three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, on one branch, and three cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower, on the other branch—so for the six branches going out of the lampstand.
²⁰ And on the lampstand itself were four cups made like almond blossoms, with their calyxes and flowers,
²¹ and a calyx of one piece with it under each pair of the six branches going out of it.
²² Their calyxes and their branches were of one piece with it. The whole of it was a single piece of hammered work of pure gold.
²³ And he made its seven lamps and its tongs and its trays of pure gold.
²⁴ He made it and all its utensils out of a talent of pure gold.
²⁵ He made the altar of incense of acacia wood. Its length was a cubit, and its breadth was a cubit. It was square, and two cubits was its height. Its horns were of one piece with it.
²⁶ He overlaid it with pure gold, its top and around its sides and its horns. And he made a molding of gold around it,
²⁷ and made two rings of gold on it under its molding, on two opposite sides of it, as holders for the poles with which to carry it.
²⁸ And he made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with gold.
²⁹ He made the holy anointing oil also, and the pure fragrant incense, blended as by the perfumer.

¹ He made the altar of burnt offering of acacia wood. Five cubits was its length, and five cubits its breadth. It was square, and three cubits was its height.
² He made horns for it on its four corners. Its horns were of one piece with it, and he overlaid it with bronze.
³ And he made all the utensils of the altar, the pots, the shovels, the basins, the forks, and the fire pans. He made all its utensils of bronze.
⁴ And he made for the altar a grating, a network of bronze, under its ledge, extending halfway down.
⁵ He cast four rings on the four corners of the bronze grating as holders for the poles.
⁶ He made the poles of acacia wood and overlaid them with bronze.
⁷ And he put the poles through the rings on the sides of the altar to carry it with them. He made it hollow, with boards.
⁸ He made the basin of bronze and its stand of bronze, from the mirrors of the ministering women who ministered in the entrance of the tent of meeting.
⁹ And he made the court. For the south side the hangings of the court were of fine twined linen, a hundred cubits;
¹⁰ their twenty pillars and their twenty bases were of bronze, but the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver.
¹¹ And for the north side there were hangings of a hundred cubits; their twenty pillars and their twenty bases were of bronze, but the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver.
¹² And for the west side were hangings of fifty cubits, their ten pillars, and their ten bases; the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver.
¹³ And for the front to the east, fifty cubits.
¹⁴ The hangings for one side of the gate were fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and three bases.
¹⁵ And so for the other side. On both sides of the gate of the court were hangings of fifteen cubits, with their three pillars and their three bases.
¹⁶ All the hangings around the court were of fine twined linen.
¹⁷ And the bases for the pillars were of bronze, but the hooks of the pillars and their fillets were of silver. The overlaying of their capitals was also of silver, and all the pillars of the court were filleted with silver.
¹⁸ And the screen for the gate of the court was embroidered with needlework in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. It was twenty cubits long and five cubits high in its breadth, corresponding to the hangings of the court.
¹⁹ And their pillars were four in number. Their four bases were of bronze, their hooks of silver, and the overlaying of their capitals and their fillets of silver.
²⁰ And all the pegs for the tabernacle and for the court all around were of bronze.
²¹ These are the records of the tabernacle, the tabernacle of the testimony, as they were recorded at the commandment of Moses, the responsibility of the Levites under the direction of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest.
²² Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the LORD commanded Moses;
²³ and with him was Oholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver and designer and embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen.
²⁴ All the gold that was used for the work, in all the construction of the sanctuary, the gold from the offering, was twenty-nine talents and 730 shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary.
²⁵ The silver from those of the congregation who were recorded was a hundred talents and 1,775 shekels, by the shekel of the sanctuary:
²⁶ a beka a head (that is, half a shekel, by the shekel of the sanctuary), for everyone who was listed in the records, from twenty years old and upward, for 603,550 men.
²⁷ The hundred talents of silver were for casting the bases of the sanctuary and the bases of the veil; a hundred bases for the hundred talents, a talent a base.
²⁸ And of the 1,775 shekels he made hooks for the pillars and overlaid their capitals and made fillets for them.
²⁹ The bronze that was offered was seventy talents and 2,400 shekels;
³⁰ with it he made the bases for the entrance of the tent of meeting, the bronze altar and the bronze grating for it and all the utensils of the altar,
³¹ the bases around the court, and the bases of the gate of the court, all the pegs of the tabernacle, and all the pegs around the court. (ESV)

¹⁴ Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.
¹⁵ And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
¹⁶ And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.
¹⁷ And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?
¹⁸ Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?
¹⁹ When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.”
²⁰ “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.”
²¹ And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
²² And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him.
²³ And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?”
²⁴ And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.”
²⁵ Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
²⁶ And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”
²⁷ And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
²⁸ And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”
²⁹ And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”
³⁰ And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.
³¹ And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
³² And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
³³ But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
³⁴ And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
³⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
³⁷ For what can a man give in return for his soul?
³⁸ For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

¹ And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” (ESV)

¹ My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger,
² if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth,
³ then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into the hand of your neighbor: go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor.
⁴ Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber;
⁵ save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler.
⁶ Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
⁷ Without having any chief, officer, or ruler,
⁸ she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.
⁹ How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?
¹⁰ A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,
¹¹ and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. (ESV)

¹ I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!—
² I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.
³ For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
⁴ For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
⁵ We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
⁶ being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
⁷ Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ’s, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we.
⁸ For even if I boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed.
⁹ I do not want to appear to be frightening you with my letters.
¹⁰ For they say, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.”
¹¹ Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present.
¹² Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.
¹³ But we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, to reach even to you.
¹⁴ For we are not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach you. For we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ.
¹⁵ We do not boast beyond limit in the labors of others. But our hope is that as your faith increases, our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged,
¹⁶ so that we may preach the gospel in lands beyond you, without boasting of work already done in another’s area of influence.
¹⁷ “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
¹⁸ For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.

¹ I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me!
² For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
³ But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
⁴ For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
⁵ Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles.
⁶ Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.
⁷ Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God’s gospel to you free of charge?
⁸ I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you.
⁹ And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way.
¹⁰ As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia.
¹¹ And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!
¹² And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do.
¹³ For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
¹⁴ And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
¹⁵ So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
¹⁶ I repeat, let no one think me foolish. But even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little.
¹⁷ What I am saying with this boastful confidence, I say not as the Lord would but as a fool.
¹⁸ Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast.
¹⁹ For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves!
²⁰ For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.
²¹ To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that! But whatever anyone else dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that.
²² Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I.
²³ Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.
²⁴ Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.
²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea;
²⁶ on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;
²⁷ in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
²⁸ And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.
²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
³⁰ If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.
³¹ The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.
³² At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me,
³³ but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.

¹ I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.
² I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows.
³ And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—
⁴ and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
⁵ On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses—
⁶ though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth; but I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me.
⁷ So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
¹⁰ For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
¹¹ I have been a fool! You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing.
¹² The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.
¹³ For in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this wrong!
¹⁴ Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.
¹⁵ I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?
¹⁶ But granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit.
¹⁷ Did I take advantage of you through any of those whom I sent to you?
¹⁸ I urged Titus to go, and sent the brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you? Did we not act in the same spirit? Did we not take the same steps?
¹⁹ Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved.
²⁰ For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.
²¹ I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.

¹ This is the third time I am coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
² I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not spare them—
³ since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you.
⁴ For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.
⁵ Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
⁶ I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test.
⁷ But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed.
⁸ For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.
⁹ For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for.
¹⁰ For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.
¹¹ Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
¹² Greet one another with a holy kiss.
¹³ All the saints greet you.
¹⁴ The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (ESV)