Ezekiel 7
Judgment Is Near for Israel
1 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,†
2 “You, son of man, speak and say, ‘Thus says the Lord to the land of Israel: “An end has come; the end has come upon the four corners of the land.
3 An end has come upon you who dwell in the land.
4 The time has come; the day is near, not with tumult nor with travail.
5 Now it is near. I shall pour out my wrath upon you and accomplish My anger among you. I shall judge you in your ways and cause all your abominations to come upon you.
6 My eye will not spare, neither will I show mercy; because I will cause your ways to come against you. Your abominations shall be in your midst, and you will know that I am the Lord who smites.
7 Now the end has come to you. I shall send judgment upon you, take vengeance on your ways, and recompense all your abominations upon you.
8 My eye will not spare against you, nor will I have mercy; because I will cause your way to come against you, and your abominations shall be in your midst. You shall know that I am the Lord.”
9 ‘For thus says the Lord:
10 “Behold, the end has come. Behold, the day of the Lord. Although the rod has blossomed, arrogance has risen forth.
11 The support of the lawless one shall be crushed, and without either tumult or haste.
12 The time has come, behold the day. Let not the buyer rejoice, and let not the seller mourn.
13 For the one who buys shall no longer turn to the one who sells, and a man shall no longer have control over his life.
14 Blow with the trumpet and judge all at once.
15 There shall be war by the sword from without and death and famine from within. He who is in the field will die by the sword, and famine and death shall destroy those in the city.
16 Those who are saved and survive will be on the mountains; I will slay all the rest—each one in his wrongdoings.
17 All hands shall be feeble, and all legs will be stained with urine.
18 They will clothe themselves with sackcloth, and astonishment shall cover them. Shame will be on them—on every face, and baldness on every head.
19 They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be disregarded. Their souls will not be satisfied, nor their stomachs filled; because it became their stumbling block of wrongdoings.
20 “As for their choice of adornment, they displayed these in arrogance and made their abominable images from them. For this reason I caused these things to be uncleanness to them.
21 I will hand over these things into the hands of foreigners, to plunder these things; and I will give these things to the troublemakers of the land as booty, and they shall desecrate them.
22 I will turn My face away from them, and they will defile My place of service. They will enter it unguardedly and desecrate it.
23 “They will create disorder, because the land is full of peoples, and the city is full of lawlessness.
24 I will turn back the pride of their strength, and their holy things shall be defiled.
25 Though propitiation shall come and one shall seek peace, there shall be none.
26 “There will be woe upon woe, and message upon message, and a vision will be sought from a prophet; but the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.
27 The ruler shall clothe himself with destruction, and the hands of the people of the land will weaken. I will do to them according to their ways and reward them according to their judgments. Then they shall know that I am the Lord!” ’ ”
Psalms 113
1 Alleluia. †In the exodus of Israel from Egypt, The house of Jacob from a foreign people,
2 Judah became His sanctuary, And Israel His authority.
3 The sea saw them and fled, The Jordan turned back;
4 The mountains skipped like rams, The hills like flocks of lambs.
5 What is it to you, O sea, that you fled, And to you, O Jordan, that you turned back?
6 What is it to you, O mountains, that you skipped like rams, And you, O hills, like flocks of lambs?
7 The earth shook because of the Lord’s face, Because of the face of Jacob’s God,
8 When He turned the rock into pools of waters And flinty ground into fountains of waters.
9 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, But to Your name give glory, For Your mercy and Your truth,
10 Lest the nations say, “Where is their God?”
11 Our God is in heaven above; And both in heaven and on earth, All things whatsoever He wills, He does.
Proverbs of Solomon 24
24 Let no lie be spoken from your tongue to the king, And let no lie come from his tongue.
25 The tongue of the king is a sword and not of flesh, And whoever it delivers, it will annihilate;
26 For if his anger is sharpened, It destroys men with its sinews.
27 And it devours the bones of men, And it burns like a flame, So as to be inedible for the nestlings of eagles.
Hebrews 11
Faith from Moses to Joshua
23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command.
24 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,
25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,
26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.
27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.
28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.
29 By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned.
30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days.
31 By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.
Faith of Other Israelites
32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets:
33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
35 Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.
37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—†
38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.†
Faith’s Perfection
39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise,
40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.†