Leviticus 26, Psalm 33, Ecclesiastes 9, Titus 1

Leviticus 26,

1 " 'Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God.
 
2 " 'Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the LORD.
 
3 " 'If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,
 
4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit.
 
5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
 
6 " 'I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country.
 
7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you.
 
8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
 
9 " 'I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you.
 
10 You will still be eating last year's harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new.
 
11 I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you.
 
12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
 
13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
 
14 " 'But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands,
 
15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant,
 
16 then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.
 
17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
 
18 " 'If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over.
 
19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze.
 
20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
 
21 " 'If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve.
 
22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.
 
23 " 'If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me,
 
24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over.
 
25 And I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands.
 
26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
 
27 " 'If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me,
 
28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over.
 
29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters.
 
30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you.
 
31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings.
 
32 I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled.
 
33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins.
 
34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.
 
35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
 
36 " 'As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them.
 
37 They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies.
 
38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you.
 
39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their fathers' sins they will waste away.
 
40 " 'But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their fathers-their treachery against me and their hostility toward me,
 
41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies-then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin,
 
42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
 
43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees.
 
44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the LORD their God.
 
45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the LORD.' "
 
46 These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the LORD established on Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses.

Psalm 33,

1 Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
 
2 Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
 
3 Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.
 
4 For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.
 
5 The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.
 
6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
 
7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses.
 
8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him.
 
9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
 
10 The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
 
11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.
 
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance.
 
13 From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind;
 
14 from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth-
 
15 he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.
 
16 No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength.
 
17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save.
 
18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
 
19 to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.
 
20 We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.
 
21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.
 
22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.

Ecclesiastes 9,

1 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him.
 
2 All share a common destiny-the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them.
 
3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.
 
4 Anyone who is among the living has hope-even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
 
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.
 
6 Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished;never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.
 
7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.
 
8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil.
 
9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun- all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.
 
10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
 
11 I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
 
12 Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.
 
13 I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me:
 
14 There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siegeworks against it.
 
15 Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man.
 
16 So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded.
 
17 The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools.
 
18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

Titus 1

1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness-
 
2 a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
 
3 and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,
 
4 To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
 
5 The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.
 
6 An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
 
7 Since an overseer is entrusted with God's work, he must be blameless-not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.
 
8 Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.
 
9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
 
10 For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group.
 
11 They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach-and that for the sake of dishonest gain.
 
12 Even one of their own prophets has said, "Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons."
 
13 This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith
 
14 and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth.
 
15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
 
16 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.