APRIL
5
PSALMS: 5, 35,
65, 96, 125
PROVERBS: 5
OLD TESTAMENT: 2 KINGS 8:1 - 9:13
NEW TESTAMENT: ACTS 16:16 - 40
PSALMS: 5
For
the director of music. For flutes. A psalm of David.
1
Give ear to my words, O LORD,
consider
my sighing.
2
Listen to my cry for help,
my
King and my God,
for
to you I pray.
3
In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;
in
the morning I lay my requests before you
and
wait in expectation.
4
You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil;
with
you the wicked cannot dwell.
5
The arrogant cannot stand in your presence;
you
hate all who do wrong.
6
You destroy those who tell lies;
bloodthirsty
and deceitful men
the
LORD abhors.
7
But I, by your great mercy,
will
come into your house;
in
reverence will I bow down
toward
your holy temple.
8
Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness
because
of my enemies--
make
straight your way before me. [1]
9
Not a word from their mouth can be trusted;
their
heart is filled with destruction.
Their
throat is an open grave;
with
their tongue they speak deceit.
10
Declare them guilty, O God!
Let
their intrigues be their downfall.
Banish
them for their many sins,
for
they have rebelled against you.
11
But let all who take refuge in you be glad;
let
them ever sing for joy.
Spread
your protection over them,
that
those who love your name may rejoice in you.
12
For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous;
you
surround them with your favor as with a shield. [2]
PSALMS: 35
Of
David.
1
Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me;
fight
against those who fight against me.
2
Take up shield and buckler;
arise
and come to my aid.
3
Brandish spear and javelin A
against
those who pursue me.
Say
to my soul,
"I am your salvation."
4
May those who seek my life
be
disgraced and put to shame;
may
those who plot my ruin
be
turned back in dismay.
5
May they be like chaff before the wind,
with
the angel of the LORD driving them away;
6
may their path be dark and slippery,
with
the angel of the LORD pursuing them.
7
Since they hid their net for me without cause
and
without cause dug a pit for me,
8
may ruin overtake them by surprise--
may
the net they hid entangle them,
may
they fall into the pit, to their ruin.
9
Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD
and
delight in his salvation.
10
My whole being will exclaim,
"Who
is like you, O LORD?
You
rescue the poor from those too strong for them,
the
poor and needy from those who rob them."[3]
11
Ruthless witnesses come forward;
they
question me on things I know nothing about.
12
They repay me evil for good
and
leave my soul forlorn.
13
Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth
and
humbled myself with fasting.
When
my prayers returned to me unanswered,
14
I went about mourning
as
though for my friend or brother.
I
bowed my head in grief
as
though weeping for my mother.
15
But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee;
attackers
gathered against me when I was unaware.
They
slandered me without ceasing.
16
Like the ungodly they maliciously mocked B;
they
gnashed their teeth at me.
17
O Lord, how long will you look on?
Rescue
my life from their ravages,
my
precious life from these lions.
18
I will give you thanks in the great assembly;
among
throngs of people I will praise you.
19
Let not those gloat over me
who
are my enemies without cause;
let
not those who hate me without reason
maliciously
wink the eye.
20
They do not speak peaceably,
but
devise false accusations
against
those who live quietly in the land.
21
They gape at me and say, "Aha! Aha!
With
our own eyes we have seen it." [4]
22
O LORD, you have seen this; be not silent.
Do
not be far from me, O Lord.
23
Awake, and rise to my defense!
Contend
for me, my God and Lord.
24
Vindicate me in your righteousness, O LORD my God;
do
not let them gloat over me.
25
Do not let them think, "Aha, just what we
wanted!"
or
say, "We have swallowed him up."
26
May all who gloat over my distress
be
put to shame and confusion;
may
all who exalt themselves over me
be
clothed with shame and disgrace.
27
May those who delight in my vindication
shout
for joy and gladness;
may
they always say, "The LORD be exalted,
who
delights in the well-being of his servant."
28
My tongue will speak of your righteousness
and
of your praises all day long. [5]
PSALMS: 65
For
the director of music. A psalm of David. A song.
1
Praise awaits A you, O God, in Zion;
to
you our vows will be fulfilled.
2
O you who hear prayer,
to
you all men will come.
3
When we were overwhelmed by sins,
you
forgave B our transgressions.
4
Blessed are those you choose
and
bring near to live in your courts!
We
are filled with the good things of your house,
of
your holy temple.
5
You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness,
O
God our Savior,
the
hope of all the ends of the earth
and
of the farthest seas,
6
who formed the mountains by your power,
having
armed yourself with strength,
7
who stilled the roaring of the seas,
the
roaring of their waves,
and
the turmoil of the nations.
8
Those living far away fear your wonders;
where
morning dawns and evening fades
you
call forth songs of joy.
9
You care for the land and water it;
you
enrich it abundantly.
The
streams of God are filled with water
to
provide the people with grain, [6]
for
so you have ordained it. C
10
You drench its furrows
and
level its ridges;
you
soften it with showers
and
bless its crops.
11
You crown the year with your bounty,
and
your carts overflow with abundance.
12
The grasslands of the desert overflow;
the
hills are clothed with gladness.
13
The meadows are covered with flocks
and
the valleys are mantled with grain;
they
shout for joy and sing. [7]
PSALMS: 95
1
Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let
us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and
extol him with music and song.
3
For the LORD is the great God,
the
great King above all gods.
4
In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and
the mountain peaks belong to him.
5
The sea is his, for he made it,
and
his hands formed the dry land.
6
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let
us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7
for he is our God
and
we are the people of his pasture,
the
flock under his care.
Today,
if you hear his voice,
8
do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, A
as
you did that day at Massah B in the desert,
9
where your fathers tested and tried me,
though
they had seen what I did.
10
For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I
said, "They are a people whose hearts go
astray,
and they have not known my ways."
11So
I declared on oath in my anger,
"They shall never enter my rest." [8]
PSALMS: 125
A
song of ascents.
1
Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,
which
cannot be shaken but endures forever.
2
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so
the LORD surrounds his people
both
now and forevermore.
3
The scepter of the wicked will not remain
over
the land allotted to the righteous,
for
then the righteous might use
their
hands to do evil.
4
Do good, O LORD, to those who are good,
to
those who are upright in heart.
5
But those who turn to crooked ways
the
LORD will banish with the evildoers.
Peace
be upon Israel. [9]
PROVERBS: 5
5
1 My son, pay attention
to my wisdom,
listen
well to my words of insight,
2
that you may maintain discretion
and
your lips may preserve knowledge.
3
For the lips of an adulteress drip honey,
and
her speech is smoother than oil;
4
but in the end she is bitter as gall,
sharp
as a double-edged sword.
5
Her feet go down to death;
her
steps lead straight to the grave. A
6
She gives no thought to the way of life;
her
paths are crooked, but she knows it not.
7
Now then, my sons, listen to me;
do
not turn aside from what I say.
8
Keep to a path far from her,
do
not go near the door of her house,
9
lest you give your best strength to others
and
your years to one who is cruel,
10
lest strangers feast on your wealth
and
your toil enrich another man's house.
11
At the end of your life you will groan,
when
your flesh and body are spent.
12
You will say, "How I hated discipline!
How
my heart spurned correction!
13
I would not obey my teachers
or
listen to my instructors.
14
I have come to the brink of utter ruin
in
the midst of the whole assembly."
15
Drink water from your own cistern,
running
water from your own well.
16
Should your springs overflow in the streets,
your
streams of water in the public squares?
17
Let them be yours alone, [10]
never
to be shared with strangers.
18
May your fountain be blessed,
and
may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19
A loving doe, a graceful deer--
may
her breasts satisfy you always,
may
you ever be captivated by her love.
20
Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress?
Why
embrace the bosom of another man's wife?
21
For a man's ways are in full view of the LORD,
and
he examines all his paths.
22
The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him;
the
cords of his sin hold him fast.
23
He will die for lack of discipline,
led
astray by his own great folly. [11]
OLD TESTAMENT: 2 KINGS 8:1 - 9:13
8 1
Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had
restored to life, "Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever
you can, because the LORD has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven
years." 2 The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She
and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years.
3 At
the end of the seven years she came back from the land of the Philistines and
went to the king to beg for her house and land. 4 The king was
talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, "Tell me
about all the great things Elisha has done."
5 Just
as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the
woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to beg the king for her
house and land.
Gehazi said, "This
is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to
life." 6 The king asked the woman about it, and she told him.
Then he assigned an
official to her case and said to him, "Give back everything that belonged
to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the
country until now."
7 Elisha
went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad king of Aram was ill. When the king was told,
"The man of God has come all the way up here," 8 he said
to Hazael, "Take a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. Consult
the LORD through him; ask him, `Will I recover from this illness?' " 9
Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him as a gift forty camel-loads
of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him, and said,
"Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has [12]
in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he
married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD.
10 Elisha answered,
"Go and say to him, `You will certainly recover'; but A the
LORD has revealed to me that he will in fact die." 11 He stared
at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael felt ashamed. Then the man of God began
to weep.
12 "Why is my lord
weeping?" asked Hazael.
"Because I know the
harm you will do to the Israelites," he answered. "You will set fire
to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their
little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women."
13 Hazael said, "How
could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?"
"The LORD has shown
me that you will become king of Aram," answered Elisha.
14 Then Hazael left Elisha
and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, "What did Elisha say to
you?" Hazael replied, "He told me that you would certainly
recover."
15 But the next day he took
a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the king's face, so that
he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as king.
16 In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of
Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat began
his reign as king of Judah. 17 He was thirty-two years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. 18 He walked
in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he
married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD. [13]
19 Nevertheless,
for the sake of his servant David, the LORD was not willing to destroy Judah.
He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants forever.
20 In
the time of Jehoram, Edom rebelled against Judah and set up its own king. 21
So Jehoram B went to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites
surrounded him and his chariot commanders, but he rose up and broke through by
night; his army, however, fled back home.
22 To
this day Edom has been in rebellion against Judah. Libnah revolted at the same
time.
23 As
for the other events of Jehoram's reign, and all he did, are they not written
in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
24 Jehoram
rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. And
Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.
25 In
the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram
king of Judah began to reign. 26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old
when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother's name
was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel. 27 He walked
in the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the LORD, as the
house of Ahab had done, for he was related by marriage to Ahab's family.
28Ahaziah
went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth
Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram; [14]
29 so King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the
Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramoth C in his battle with Hazael
king of Aram.
Then Ahaziah son of
Jehoram king of Judah went down to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab, because he
had been wounded.
9 1
The prophet Elisha summoned a man from the company of
the prophets and said to him, "Tuck your cloak into your belt, take this
flask of oil with you and go to Ramoth Gilead. 2 When you get there,
look for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. Go to him, get him away
from his companions and take him into an inner room. 3 Then take the
flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, `This
is what the LORD says: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and
run; don't delay!"
4 So
the young man, the prophet, went to Ramoth Gilead. 5 When he
arrived, he found the army officers sitting together. "I have a message
for you, commander," he said.
"For which of
us?" asked Jehu.
"For you,
commander," he replied.
6 Jehu
got up and went into the house. Then the prophet poured the oil on Jehu's head
and declared, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: `I anoint you king over the LORD's people Israel.
7 You
are to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of my
servants the prophets and the blood of all the LORD's servants shed by Jezebel.
8 The whole house of Ahab will [15]
perish. I will cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel--slave or free. 9
I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and
like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah. 10 As for Jezebel, dogs will
devour her on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.'"
Then he opened the door and ran.
11 When
Jehu went out to his fellow officers, one of them asked him, "Is
everything all right? Why did this madman come to you?"
"You know the man
and the sort of things he says," Jehu replied.
12 "That's
not true!" they said. "Tell us."
Jehu said, "Here is what he told me: `This is what the LORD says: I
anoint you king over Israel.'"
13 They
hurried and took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then
they blew the trumpet and shouted, "Jehu is king!" [16]
NEW TESTAMENT: ACTS 16:16 - 40
16 Once
when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had
a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money
for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and
the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God,
who are telling you the way to be saved." 18 She kept this up
for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said
to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of
her!" At that moment the spirit left her.
19 When
the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone,
they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the
authorities. 20 They brought them before the magistrates and said,
"These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21 by
advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice."
22 The
crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered
them to be stripped and beaten. 23 After they had been severely
flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard
them carefully. 24 Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the
inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25 About
midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other
prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a
violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all
the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose. 27 The
jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and
was about to [17]
Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself! We are all here!"
29 The
jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30
He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be
saved?"
31 They
replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your
household." 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and
to all the others in his house. 33 At that hour of the night the
jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his
family were baptized. 34 The jailer brought them into his house and
set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe
in God--he and his whole family.
35 When
it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the
order: "Release those men." 36 The jailer told Paul,
"The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can
leave. Go in peace."
37 But
Paul said to the officers: "They beat us publicly without a trial, even
though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to
get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out."
38 The
officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and
Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. 39 They came to
appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the
city.
40After
Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house, where they
met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left. [18]
[1]
Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Bible NIV.
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[2]
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[3]
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[4]
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[5]
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[6]
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[7]
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[8]
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[9]
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[10] Excerpted from Compton's
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Inc. All Rights Reserved
[11] Excerpted from Compton's
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[12] Excerpted from Compton's
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[13]Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Bible NIV.
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[14] Excerpted from Compton's
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[15] Excerpted from Compton's
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[16] Excerpted from Compton's
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[17] Excerpted from Compton's
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[18] Excerpted from Compton's
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