2 Kings 10, 2 Timothy 1, Hosea 2, Psalm 119:97~120

2 Kings 10,

1 Now there were in Samaria seventy sons of the house of Ahab. So Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria: to the officials of Jezreel, to the elders and to the guardians of Ahab's children. He said,
 
2 "As soon as this letter reaches you, since your master's sons are with you and you have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weapons,
 
3 choose the best and most worthy of your master's sons and set him on his father's throne. Then fight for your master's house."
 
4 But they were terrified and said, "If two kings could not resist him, how can we?"
 
5 So the palace administrator, the city governor, the elders and the guardians sent this message to Jehu: "We are your servants and we will do anything you say. We will not appoint anyone as king; you do whatever you think best."
 
6 Then Jehu wrote them a second letter, saying, "If you are on my side and will obey me, take the heads of your master's sons and come to me in Jezreel by this time tomorrow." Now the royal princes, seventy of them, were with the leading men of the city, who were rearing them.
 
7 When the letter arrived, these men took the princes and slaughtered all seventy of them. They put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu in Jezreel.
 
8 When the messenger arrived, he told Jehu, "They have brought the heads of the princes." Then Jehu ordered, "Put them in two piles at the entrance of the city gate until morning."
 
9 The next morning Jehu went out. He stood before all the people and said, "You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him, but who killed all these?
 
10 Know then, that not a word the LORD has spoken against the house of Ahab will fail. The LORD has done what he promised through his servant Elijah."
 
11 So Jehu killed everyone in Jezreel who remained of the house of Ahab, as well as all his chief men, his close friends and his priests, leaving him no survivor.
 
12 Jehu then set out and went toward Samaria. At Beth Eked of the Shepherds,
 
13 he met some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah and asked, "Who are you?" They said, "We are relatives of Ahaziah, and we have come down to greet the families of the king and of the queen mother."
 
14 "Take them alive!" he ordered. So they took them alive and slaughtered them by the well of Beth Eked-forty-two men. He left no survivor.
 
15 After he left there, he came upon Jehonadab son of Recab, who was on his way to meet him. Jehu greeted him and said, "Are you in accord with me, as I am with you?" "I am," Jehonadab answered. "If so," said Jehu, "give me your hand." So he did, and Jehu helped him up into the chariot.
 
16 Jehu said, "Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD." Then he had him ride along in his chariot.
 
17 When Jehu came to Samaria, he killed all who were left there of Ahab's family; he destroyed them, according to the word of the LORD spoken to Elijah.
 
18 Then Jehu brought all the people together and said to them, "Ahab served Baal a little; Jehu will serve him much.
 
19 Now summon all the prophets of Baal, all his ministers and all his priests. See that no one is missing, because I am going to hold a great sacrifice for Baal. Anyone who fails to come will no longer live." But Jehu was acting deceptively in order to destroy the ministers of Baal.
 
20 Jehu said, "Call an assembly in honor of Baal." So they proclaimed it.
 
21 Then he sent word throughout Israel, and all the ministers of Baal came; not one stayed away. They crowded into the temple of Baal until it was full from one end to the other.
 
22 And Jehu said to the keeper of the wardrobe, "Bring robes for all the ministers of Baal." So he brought out robes for them.
 
23 Then Jehu and Jehonadab son of Recab went into the temple of Baal. Jehu said to the ministers of Baal, "Look around and see that no servants of the LORD are here with you-only ministers of Baal."
 
24 So they went in to make sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu had posted eighty men outside with this warning: "If one of you lets any of the men I am placing in your hands escape, it will be your life for his life."
 
25 As soon as Jehu had finished making the burnt offering, he ordered the guards and officers: "Go in and kill them; let no one escape." So they cut them down with the sword. The guards and officers threw the bodies out and then entered the inner shrine of the temple of Baal.
 
26 They brought the sacred stone out of the temple of Baal and burned it.
 
27 They demolished the sacred stone of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal, and people have used it for a latrine to this day.
 
28 So Jehu destroyed Baal worship in Israel.
 
29 However, he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit-the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.
 
30 The LORD said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation."
 
31 Yet Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit.
 
32 In those days the LORD began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael overpowered the Israelites throughout their territory
 
33 east of the Jordan in all the land of Gilead (the region of Gad, Reuben and Manasseh), from Aroer by the Arnon Gorge through Gilead to Bashan.
 
34 As for the other events of Jehu's reign, all he did, and all his achievements, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?
 
35 Jehu rested with his fathers and was buried in Samaria. And Jehoahaz his son succeeded him as king.
 
36 The time that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years.
 

2 Timothy 1,

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
 
2 To Timothy, my dear son: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.
 
4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy.
 
5 I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.
 
6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
 
7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
 
8 So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,
 
9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
 
10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
 
11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher.
 
12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.
 
13 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.
 
14 Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you-guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
 
15 You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes.
 
16 May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.
 
17 On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me.
 
18 May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.
 

Hosea 2,

1 "Say of your brothers, 'My people,' and of your sisters, 'My loved one.'
 
2 "Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
 
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst.
 
4 I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery.
 
5 Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.'
 
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
 
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, 'I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.'
 
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold-which they used for Baal.
 
9 "Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness.
 
10 So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands.
 
11 I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days-all her appointed feasts.
 
12 I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.
 
13 I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot," declares the LORD.
 
14 "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.
 
15 There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
 
16 "In that day," declares the LORD, "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master.'
 
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.
 
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.
 
19 I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.
 
20 I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD.
 
21 "In that day I will respond," declares the LORD-"I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth;
 
22 and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.
 
23 I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.' "
 

Psalm 119:97~120

97 Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
 
98 Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.
 
99 I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes.
 
100 I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.
 
101 I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word.
 
102 I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me.
 
103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
 
104 I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path.
 
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
 
106 I have taken an oath and confirmed it, that I will follow your righteous laws.
 
107 I have suffered much; preserve my life, O LORD, according to your word.
 
108 Accept, O LORD, the willing praise of my mouth, and teach me your laws.
 
109 Though I constantly take my life in my hands, I will not forget your law.
 
110 The wicked have set a snare for me, but I have not strayed from your precepts.
 
111 Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart.
 
112 My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.
 
113 I hate double-minded men, but I love your law.
 
114 You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word.
 
115 Away from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commands of my God!
 
116 Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my hopes be dashed.
 
117 Uphold me, and I will be delivered; I will always have regard for your decrees.
 
118 You reject all who stray from your decrees, for their deceitfulness is in vain.
 
119 All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross; therefore I love your statutes.
 
120 My flesh trembles in fear of you; I stand in awe of your laws.