Night Watch Devotion

A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath.
¹ It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
² to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night,
³ to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.
⁴ For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
⁵ How great are your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep!
⁶ The stupid man cannot know; the fool cannot understand this:
⁷ that though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever;
⁸ but you, O LORD, are on high forever.
⁹ For behold, your enemies, O LORD, for behold, your enemies shall perish; all evildoers shall be scattered.
¹⁰ But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox; you have poured over me fresh oil.
¹¹ My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies; my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.
¹² The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
¹³ They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God.
¹⁴ They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green,
¹⁵ to declare that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. (ESV)

A Song. A Psalm of David.
¹ My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being!
² Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!
³ I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.
⁴ For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
⁵ Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!
⁶ That your beloved ones may be delivered, give salvation by your right hand and answer me!
⁷ God has promised in his holiness: “With exultation I will divide up Shechem and portion out the Valley of Succoth.
⁸ Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim is my helmet, Judah my scepter.
⁹ Moab is my washbasin; upon Edom I cast my shoe; over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
¹⁰ Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
¹¹ Have you not rejected us, O God? You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
¹² Oh grant us help against the foe, for vain is the salvation of man!
¹³ With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes. (ESV)

²³ Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (ESV)

¹ When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
² So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”
³ So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.
⁴ And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
⁵ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”
⁶ And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
⁷ And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
⁸ They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”
⁹ And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
¹⁰ Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
¹¹ But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.
¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”
¹⁴ And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. (ESV)

²⁰ And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹ “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
²² “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
²³ Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
²⁴ “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
²⁵ “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
²⁶ “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.
²⁷ “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
²⁹ To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.
³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.
³¹ And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
³² “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.
³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
³⁶ Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
³⁷ “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;
³⁸ give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” (ESV)

¹ These are the words of the covenant that the LORD commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.
² And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land,
³ the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders.
⁴ But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.
⁵ I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet.
⁶ You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the LORD your God.
⁷ And when you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, but we defeated them.
⁸ We took their land and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites.
⁹ Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
¹⁰ “You are standing today, all of you, before the LORD your God: the heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel,
¹¹ your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water,
¹² so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the LORD your God, which the LORD your God is making with you today,
¹³ that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
¹⁴ It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant,
¹⁵ but with whoever is standing here with us today before the LORD our God, and with whoever is not here with us today.
¹⁶ “You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed.
¹⁷ And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them.
¹⁸ Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit,
¹⁹ one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike.
²⁰ The LORD will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the LORD and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven.
²¹ And the LORD will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.
²² And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick—
²³ the whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger and wrath—
²⁴ all the nations will say, ‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’
²⁵ Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt,
²⁶ and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them.
²⁷ Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book,
²⁸ and the LORD uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as they are this day.’
²⁹ “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

¹ “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you,
² and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul,
³ then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.
⁴ If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.
⁵ And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.
⁶ And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
⁷ And the LORD your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you.
⁸ And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD and keep all his commandments that I command you today.
⁹ The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers,
¹⁰ when you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. (ESV)

³¹ And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.
³² For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.
³³ And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”
³⁴ But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
³⁵ As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.
³⁶ And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant.
³⁷ They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”
³⁸ And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
³⁹ And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
⁴⁰ And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him,
⁴¹ “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.”
⁴² And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.”
⁴³ And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

¹ He entered Jericho and was passing through.
² And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich.
³ And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature.
⁴ So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.
⁵ And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”
⁶ So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.
⁷ And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”
⁸ And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”
⁹ And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.
¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (ESV)

¹ The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.
² Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death.
³ The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
⁴ A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
⁵ He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.
⁶ Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
⁷ The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.
⁸ The wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.
⁹ Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.
¹⁰ Whoever winks the eye causes trouble, and a babbling fool will come to ruin. (ESV)