Reading the Bible Together

The Passage for the Day

For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm. A song.

   1 May God be gracious to us and bless us 
       and make his face shine on us— 

    2 so that your ways may be known on earth, 
       your salvation among all nations.

    3 May the peoples praise you, God; 
       may all the peoples praise you.

    4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy, 
       for you rule the peoples with equity 
       and guide the nations of the earth.

    5 May the peoples praise you, God; 
       may all the peoples praise you.

    6 The land yields its harvest; 
       God, our God, blesses us.

    7 May God bless us still, 
       so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.

Points of interest:

·         ‘May God be gracious to us and bless us’—as with yesterday, I believe the ‘us’ here is, at least originally, referring to the Israelites.  The psalmist is unabashedly asking God to treat the Israelites like they’re God’s favorites.

·         ‘so that your ways may be known on earth’— even as the psalmist boldly asks for God’s favor, it’s with a curious lack of self-regard.  This isn’t about them.  It isn’t about how good the Israelites are, but about how good God is, to the Israelites and anyone else who will turn to him.

·         ‘for you rule the peoples with equity’—this psalm starts with a request for special favor from God, but the thing the psalmist admires most about God is his lack of favoritism.  Apparently, God treats everyone equally, as his favorites.

·         ‘May God bless us still’—the psalmist seems to have a great plan, for everyone involved.  They want God to keep on blessing them until absolutely everyone finally relents and asks God for that same blessing.

Taking it home:

·         For you: Take a few minutes to give thanks to God.  Thank him for anything in life that feel likes a good thing.  Also, try to thank God for some of his qualities that you really like.  You probably know how good it feels when a friend tells you how much they appreciate something about you.  I think God might be a little like us in this regard.  Maybe, like us, God considers it a sign of friendship when we tell him things we like about him.

·         For your six: Are any of your six in the midst of making some pretty big decisions?  Pray that God would give them guidance today and that God’s ways and wisdom would be available to them. 

.        For America: Pray that our nation would in fact be glad and singing for joy.  Ask God that he would fill everyone today with more of his joy.  Ask God to take away any persistent gloom, drivenness, or depression that might be lingering over people.  Ask that our nation would be one where people experience a special sense of life, satisfaction and joy that only comes from God. 

Jesus Heals the Official’s Son

⁴³ After the two days he left for Galilee. ⁴⁴ (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that prophets have no honor in their own country.) ⁴⁵ When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, for they also had been there.

⁴⁶ Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

⁴⁸ “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

⁴⁹ The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

⁵⁰ “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at his word and departed. ⁵¹ While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. ⁵² When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”

⁵³ Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.

⁵⁴ This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee.

¹⁶ I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. ¹⁷ For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Israel Forsakes God

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem:
“This is what the LORD says:
” ‘I remember the devotion of your youth,
how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through the wilderness,
through a land not sown.

³ Israel was holy to the LORD,
the firstfruits of his harvest;
all who devoured her were held guilty,
and disaster overtook them,’ ”
declares the LORD.

⁴ Hear the word of the LORD, house of Jacob,
all you clans of the house of Israel.

⁵ This is what the LORD says:
“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
and became worthless themselves.

⁶ They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD,
who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
a land where no one travels and no one lives?’

⁷ I brought you into a fertile land
to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
and made my inheritance detestable.

⁸ The priests did not ask,
‘Where is the LORD?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
following worthless idols.

⁹ “Therefore I bring charges against you again,”
declares the LORD.
“And I will bring charges against your children’s children.

¹⁰ Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
send to Kedar and observe closely;
see if there has ever been anything like this:

¹¹ Has a nation ever changed its gods?
(Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
for worthless idols.

¹² Be appalled at this, you heavens,
and shudder with great horror,”
declares the LORD.

¹³ “My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

For the director of music. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” Of David. A miktam.

¹ Do you rulers indeed speak justly?
Do you judge people with equity?

² No, in your heart you devise injustice,
and your hands mete out violence on the earth.

³ Even from birth the wicked go astray;
from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies.

⁴ Their venom is like the venom of a snake,
like that of a cobra that has stopped its ears,

⁵ that will not heed the tune of the charmer,
however skillful the enchanter may be.

⁶ Break the teeth in their mouths, O God;
LORD, tear out the fangs of those lions!

⁷ Let them vanish like water that flows away;
when they draw the bow, let their arrows fall short.

⁸ May they be like a slug that melts away as it moves along,
like a stillborn child that never sees the sun.

⁹ Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns—
whether they be green or dry—the wicked will be swept away.

¹⁰ The righteous will be glad when they are avenged,
when they dip their feet in the blood of the wicked.

¹¹ Then people will say,
“Surely the righteous still are rewarded;
surely there is a God who judges the earth.”