Deuteronomy 11, Psalm 95, 96, Isaiah 39, Revelation 9

Deuteronomy 11,

1 Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.
 
2 Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm;
 
3 the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country;
 
4 what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the LORD brought lasting ruin on them.
 
5 It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place,
 
6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them.
 
7 But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the LORD has done.
 
8 Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,
 
9 and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
 
10 The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.
 
11 But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven.
 
12 It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.
 
13 So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today-to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul-
 
14 then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil.
 
15 I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.
 
16 Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them.
 
17 Then the LORD's anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you.
 
18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
 
19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
 
20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,
 
21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.
 
22 If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow-to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways and to hold fast to him-
 
23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you.
 
24 Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the western sea.
 
25 No man will be able to stand against you. The LORD your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go.
 
26 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse-
 
27 the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today;
 
28 the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.
 
29 When the LORD your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses.
 
30 As you know, these mountains are across the Jordan, west of the road, toward the setting sun, near the great trees of Moreh, in the territory of those Canaanites living in the Arabah in the vicinity of Gilgal.
 
31 You are about to cross the Jordan to enter and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you. When you have taken it over and are living there,
 
32 be sure that you obey all the decrees and laws I am setting before you today.

Psalm 95, 96,

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, as you did that day at Massah 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."
 
11 So I declared on oath in my anger, "They shall never enter my rest."

1 Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.
 
2 Sing to the LORD, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.
 
3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
 
4 For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods.
 
5 For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.
 
6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary.
 
7 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of nations, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
 
8 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts.
 
9 Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.
 
10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns." The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.
 
11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it;
 
12 let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;
 
13 they will sing before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.

Isaiah 39,

1 At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylon sent Hezekiah letters and a gift, because he had heard of his illness and recovery.
 
2 Hezekiah received the envoys gladly and showed them what was in his storehouses-the silver, the gold, the spices, the fine oil, his entire armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
 
3 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, "What did those men say, and where did they come from?" "From a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came to me from Babylon."
 
4 The prophet asked, "What did they see in your palace?" "They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah said. "There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them."
 
5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD Almighty:
 
6 The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD.
 
7 And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."
 
8 "The word of the LORD you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "There will be peace and security in my lifetime."

Revelation 9

1 The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.
 
2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.
 
3 And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
 
4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
 
5 They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
 
6 During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
 
7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces.
 
8 Their hair was like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth.
 
9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.
 
10 They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.
 
11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.
 
12 The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.
 
13 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God.
 
14 It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates."
 
15 And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
 
16 The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.
 
17 The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.
 
18 A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.
 
19 The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.
 
20 The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood-idols that cannot see or hear or walk.
 
21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.