Midday Devotion

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
¹ The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
² Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
³ There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.
⁴ Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
⁵ which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
⁶ Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
⁸ the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
⁹ the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
¹⁰ More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
¹¹ Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
¹² Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
¹³ Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
¹⁴ Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (ESV)

A Psalm.
¹ Oh sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.
² The LORD has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
³ He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
⁴ Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
⁵ Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody!
⁶ With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD!
⁷ Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it!
⁸ Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together
⁹ before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity. (ESV)

¹ I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (ESV)

¹³ In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp.
¹⁴ And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.
¹⁵ When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.
¹⁶ This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’”
¹⁷ And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less.
¹⁸ But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.
¹⁹ And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.”
²⁰ But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.
²¹ Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.
²² On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses,
²³ he said to them, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’”
²⁴ So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it.
²⁵ Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field.
²⁶ Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”
²⁷ On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.
²⁸ And the LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?
²⁹ See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.”
³⁰ So the people rested on the seventh day.
³¹ Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
³² Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’”
³³ And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD to be kept throughout your generations.”
³⁴ As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept.
³⁵ The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan. (ESV)

¹⁹ Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,
²⁰ by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,
²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
²² let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
²⁴ And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
²⁵ not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
²⁶ For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
²⁷ but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
²⁸ Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
²⁹ How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
³⁰ For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
³² But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,
³³ sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.
³⁴ For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.
³⁵ Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
³⁶ For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.
³⁷ For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay;
³⁸ but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”
³⁹ But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (ESV)

¹ “Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven,
² a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’
³ Know therefore today that he who goes over before you as a consuming fire is the LORD your God. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the LORD has promised you.
⁴ “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out before you.
⁵ Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
⁶ “Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.
⁷ Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD.
⁸ Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.
⁹ When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.
¹⁰ And the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the LORD had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
¹¹ And at the end of forty days and forty nights the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.
¹² Then the LORD said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.’
¹³ “Furthermore, the LORD said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people.
¹⁴ Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’
¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.
¹⁶ And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had made yourselves a golden calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you.
¹⁷ So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.
¹⁸ Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD to provoke him to anger.
¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the LORD bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.
²⁰ And the LORD was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.
²¹ Then I took the sinful thing, the calf that you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. And I threw the dust of it into the brook that ran down from the mountain.
²² “At Taberah also, and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the LORD to wrath.
²³ And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God and did not believe him or obey his voice.
²⁴ You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.
²⁵ “So I lay prostrate before the LORD for these forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
²⁶ And I prayed to the LORD, ‘O Lord GOD, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
²⁷ Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin,
²⁸ lest the land from which you brought us say, “Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.”
²⁹ For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’

¹ “At that time the LORD said to me, ‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood.
² And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’
³ So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.
⁴ And he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments that the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And the LORD gave them to me.
⁵ Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I had made. And there they are, as the LORD commanded me.”
⁶ (The people of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried. And his son Eleazar ministered as priest in his place.
⁷ From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water.
⁸ At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD to stand before the LORD to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day.
⁹ Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The LORD is his inheritance, as the LORD your God said to him.)
¹⁰ “I myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the LORD listened to me that time also. The LORD was unwilling to destroy you.
¹¹ And the LORD said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’
¹² “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
¹³ and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?
¹⁴ Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.
¹⁵ Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.
¹⁶ Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.
¹⁷ For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.
¹⁸ He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.
¹⁹ Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
²⁰ You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear.
²¹ He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.
²² Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. (ESV)

¹ In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
² Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.
³ Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
⁴ “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.
⁵ But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
⁶ Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.
⁷ Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
⁸ “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God,
⁹ but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.
¹⁰ And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
¹¹ And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say,
¹² for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
¹⁴ But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?”
¹⁵ And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
¹⁶ And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully,
¹⁷ and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’
¹⁸ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’
²⁰ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
²¹ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
²² And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.
²³ For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
²⁴ Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!
²⁵ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
²⁶ If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?
²⁷ Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
²⁸ But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
²⁹ And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried.
³⁰ For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them.
³¹ Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
³² “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
³³ Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
³⁴ For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (ESV)

⁷ Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
⁸ By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
⁹ I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
¹⁰ As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
¹¹ Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. (ESV)