Isaiah 46
1 Bel bowed down; Dagon is crushed; their carved stones are for the wild animals and cattle. Take them bound as a burden to the weary,
2 to the hungry, the exhausted and those who have no strength together, who shall not be able to save themselves from war, but who themselves are led away as captives.
3 “Listen to Me, O house of Jacob and all the remnant of Israel, both those taken from the womb and those instructed from childhood,†
4 even to your old age: I Am, and even to your gray hairs, I Am. I bear you; I made you and will forgive you. I will take you up and save you.
5 To whom will you liken Me? Look what you contrived, you who went astray.
6 Those who contribute gold from a purse and silver on a scale, and count them out by weight, and who hire a goldsmith, they make things with their hands, and bowing down, they worship them.
7 They bear it on their shoulders and go; and if they set it somewhere, it remains there and never moves. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer, nor save him from his troubles.
8 Remember these things and groan. Repent, you who go astray; return in your heart.
9 Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other besides Me,
10 declaring beforehand the latter events before they come to pass and are accomplished together. I say, ‘All My counsel shall stand, and I will do whatever I will to do,†
11 calling a bird from the east and from a land afar off.’ For what I purpose to do, I speak and bring it about, and create and do it. Thus I brought him and proposed his way.
12 Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted who are far from righteousness.
13 I bring My righteousness near, and My salvation shall not delay. I give salvation in Zion and to Israel for glory.
Psalms 89
1 A prayer of Moses, a man of God. †O Lord, You became a refuge to us in generation and generation;
2 Before the mountains were made, And before the earth and the world were formed, And from everlasting to everlasting, You are.
3 Do not let man be turned back to humiliation, And You said, “Return, you sons of men.”
4 For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday, which passed, And like a watch in the night.
5 Years shall be objects of contempt to them; In the morning let man pass by like grass;
6 In the morning let him blossom, and pass by; In the evening let him fall off, be dried up and withered.
7 For we fainted in Your wrath, And in Your wrath we were troubled.
8 You set our transgressions before You, Our time in the light of Your face.
9 For all our days failed, And in Your wrath we fainted; Our years were spent in thought like a spider.
10 As for the days of our years, their span is seventy years, But if we stay strong, perhaps eighty; And most of them are labor and pain; For meekness came upon us, and we shall be chastened.
11 Who knows the power of Your wrath, And who knows Your anger because of Your fear?
12 So make known Your right hand to us, that we may number our days, And our heart may be bound with wisdom.
13 Return, O Lord; how long? And be entreated concerning Your servants.
14 We were filled with Your mercy in the morning, And in all our days we greatly rejoiced and were glad;
15 Gladden us in return for the days You humbled us, For the years we saw evil things.
16 And behold Your servants and Your works, And guide their sons;
17 And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us, And prosper for us the works of our hands.
Proverbs of Solomon 19
13 A son without discernment is a disgrace to his father, And vows paid from the wage of a prostitute are not pure.
14 Fathers divide the house and property to their children, But a wife is suited to her husband by God.
15 Cowardice possesses a weak man, And the soul of the idle man will be hungry.†
16 He who guards the commandment keeps his soul, But he who despises his ways shall perish.
17 The one who has mercy on the poor lends to God, And He will repay him according to his gift.†
18 Instruct your son, for thus he shall be hopeful, But do not lift up your soul in arrogance.
1 Thessalonians 4
Reminders Concerning Holiness
1 Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;†
2 for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;
4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,†
5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.
7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.
8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.
9 But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;
10 and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more;
11 that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,†
12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.
Who Will Participate in Christ’s Return
13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.