Hosea 6, 7
1 “‘Let us go and return to the Lord our God;
For He has grasped and will heal us;
He will smite and plug the wound with lint.
2 After two days He will heal us.
In the third day we shall rise
And live before Him.
3 Let us know, let us pursue
That we might know the Lord.
We shall find Him ready as the daybreak,
And He will come to us
As the early and latter rain to the earth.’
Israel and Judah Are Unrepentant
4 “What shall I do to you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do to you, O Judah?
Your mercy is as a morning cloud
And as the early dew that goes away.
5 Therefore I have cut off your prophets;
I have slain them with the words of My mouth,
And My judgment shall go forth as the light.
6 For I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
And the knowledge of God
More than whole burnt offerings.
7 But they are as a man who transgresses the covenant;
There they despised Me.
8 Gilead is a city working vanity with troubling water.
9 Your strength is that of a pirate;
The priests have hidden the way;
They have murdered the people of Shechem,
For they have done lawlessness.
10 In the house of Israel I have seen horrible things;
There is the fornication of Ephraim;
Israel and Judah are defiled.
11 Begin to harvest for yourself
When I return the captives of My people.
1 “When I have healed Israel,
Then shall the wrongdoing of Ephraim
And the evil of Samaria be revealed,
For they have worked falsehood.
A thief shall come in to him,
Even a robber taking spoil in his way,
2 That they may sing together
As men singing in their heart.
I remember all their evils;
Now their own counsels have encircled them;
They were before My face.
3 They gladdened kings with their evils
And princes with their lies.
4 “They are all adulterers,
Like an oven heated for cooking,
Burning with a flame during the kneading of the dough
Until it is leavened.
5 In the days of our kings,
The princes began to be inflamed with wine;
He stretched out his hand with pestilent fellows.
6 Wherefore their hearts are inflamed like an oven
While they were falling down all the night.
Ephraim is satisfied with sleep;
The morning is come;
He is burnt up like a flame of fire.
7 They are all heated like an oven
And have devoured their judges.
All their kings are fallen;
There was not among them one that called upon Me.
8 “Ephraim is mixed among his peoples;
Ephraim became a cake not turned.
9 Strangers devoured his strength,
And he knew it not.
Grey hairs came upon him,
And he knew it not.
10 The pride of Israel shall be humbled before his face;
Yet they have not returned to the Lord their God,
Neither have they diligently sought Him in spite of all this.
Trusting Other Nations Is Futile
11 “Ephraim was like a silly dove, not having a heart;
He called to Egypt, and they went to the Assyrians.
12 Whenever they shall go, I will cast My net upon them;
I will bring them down as the birds of the sky.
I will chastise them through the news of their affliction.
13 “Woe to them, for they have turned away from Me!
They are cowards,
For they have committed impious deeds against Me.
Yet I redeemed them,
But they spoke falsehoods against Me.
14 Their hearts did not cry aloud to Me,
But they wailed upon their beds.
“They slashed themselves for oil and wine;
They were chastised by Me.
15 I strengthened their arms,
But they devised evils against Me.
16 They turned aside to nothing;
They became as a stretched bow.
Their princes shall fall by the sword;
They will be despised in the land of Egypt
Because of their unrestrained tongue.
Psalm 84
1 For the End; a psalm for the sons of Korah.
2 O Lord, You were pleased with Your land;
You turned back the captivity of Jacob;
3 You forgave the transgressions of Your people;
You covered all their sins.
(Pause)
4 You ended all Your wrath;
You turned from the wrath of Your anger.
5 Turn us, O God of our salvation,
And turn away Your anger from us.
6 Will You be angry with us forever,
Or will You prolong Your anger from generation to generation?
7 O God, You will turn and give us life,
And Your people will be glad in You.
8 Show us Your mercy, O Lord,
And grant us Your salvation.
9 I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me,
For He will speak peace
To His people and to His holy ones,
And to those who turn their heart to Him.
10 His salvation is very close at hand to those who fear Him,
That glory may dwell in our land.
11 Mercy and truth met together;
Righteousness and peace kissed each other;
12 Truth arose from the earth,
And righteousness looked down from heaven.
13 For the Lord will give goodness,
And our land shall yield its fruit.
14 Righteousness shall go before Him
And establish His footsteps as our pathway.
Proverbs 17:26–30
26 The face of a wise man shows understanding,
But the eyes of the man without discernment are upon the ends of the earth.
27 A son without discernment is wrath to a father
And grief to her who bore him.
28 It is not good to punish a righteous man,
Nor is it holy to plot against righteous princes.
29 He who refrains from uttering a harsh word is intelligent,
And a longsuffering man has discernment.
30 Wisdom shall be imputed to a man without understanding who asks for wisdom,
And anyone who holds his peace will seem to have discernment.
Colossians 1
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colosse:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Their Faith in Christ
3 We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints;
5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel,
6 which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth;
7 as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf,
8 who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
Preeminence of Christ
9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy;
12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
Reconciled in Christ
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled
22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—
23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Sacrificial Service for Christ
24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,
25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God,
26 the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.
27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
28 Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.29 To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.