Genesis 15, Matthew 14, Nehemiah 4, Acts 14

Genesis 15,

After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward. "
But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?"
And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."
Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir."
He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
  
  Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
He also said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it."
But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?"
So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."
Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.
  
  Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.
Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.
  
  In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates-
the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,
  
  Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites." 

Matthew 14,

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus,
and he said to his attendants, "This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him."
Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife,
for John had been saying to him: "It is not lawful for you to have her."
Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet.
  
  On Herod's birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for them and pleased Herod so much
that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked.
Prompted by her mother, she said, "Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist."
The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted
and had John beheaded in the prison.
  
  His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.
John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.
When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns.
When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food."
  
  Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."
"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered.
"Bring them here to me," he said.
And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.
They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
  
  The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.
After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,
but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.
  
  When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
"Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
  
  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.
Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret.
And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him
  
  and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed. 

Nehemiah 4,

When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews,
and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, "What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble--burned as they are?"
Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, "What they are building--if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!"
Hear us, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity.
Do not cover up their guilt or blot out their sins from your sight, for they have thrown insults in the face of the builders.
  
  So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.
But when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem's walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry.
They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it.
But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.
Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, "The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall."
  
  Also our enemies said, "Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work."
Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, "Wherever you turn, they will attack us."
Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows.
After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."
When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.
  
  From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah
who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other,
and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.
Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall.
Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!"
  
  So we continued the work with half the men holding spears, from the first light of dawn till the stars came out.
At that time I also said to the people, "Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night, so they can serve us as guards by night and workmen by day."
Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water.
 

Acts 14

At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed.
But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.
The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles.
There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them.
  
  But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country,
where they continued to preach the good news.
In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked.
He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed
and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
  
  When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!"
Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker.
The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting:
"Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.
  
  In the past, he let all nations go their own way.
Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."
Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead.
But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.
  
  They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch,
strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God," they said.
Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.
After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia,
and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.
  
  From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed.
On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.