ISAIAH 63

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The Lord’s Day of Vengeance63:1

Who is this who comes from Edom,

in crimsoned garments from Bozrah,

he who is splendid in his apparel,

marching in the greatness of his strength?

“It is I, speaking in righteousness,

mighty to save.”
2

Why is your apparel red,

and your garments like his who treads in the winepress?
3

“I have trodden the winepress alone,

and from the peoples no one was with me;

I trod them in my anger

and trampled them in my wrath;

their lifeblood spattered on my garments,

and stained all my apparel. 4

For the day of vengeance was in my heart,

and my year of redemption had come. 5

I looked, but there was no one to help;

I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold;

so my own arm brought me salvation,

and my wrath upheld me. 6

I trampled down the peoples in my anger;

I made them drunk in my wrath,

and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.” The Lord’s Mercy Remembered7

I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord,

the praises of the Lord,

according to all that the Lord has granted us,

and the great goodness to the house of Israel

that he has granted them according to his compassion,

according to the abundance of his steadfast love. 8

For he said, “Surely they are my people,

children who will not deal falsely.”

And he became their Savior. 9

In all their affliction he was afflicted,

and the angel of his presence saved them;

in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;

he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
10

But they rebelled

and grieved his Holy Spirit;

therefore he turned to be their enemy,

and himself fought against them. 11

Then he remembered the days of old,

of Moses and his people.

Where is he who brought them up out of the sea

with the shepherds of his flock?

Where is he who put in the midst of them

his Holy Spirit, 12

who caused his glorious arm

to go at the right hand of Moses,

who divided the waters before them

to make for himself an everlasting name, 13

who led them through the depths?

Like a horse in the desert,

they did not stumble. 14

Like livestock that go down into the valley,

the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest.

So you led your people,

to make for yourself a glorious name. Prayer for Mercy15

Look down from heaven and see,

from your holy and beautiful habitation.

Where are your zeal and your might?

The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion

are held back from me. 16

For you are our Father,

though Abraham does not know us,

and Israel does not acknowledge us;

you, O Lord, are our Father,

our Redeemer from of old is your name. 17

O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways

and harden our heart, so that we fear you not?

Return for the sake of your servants,

the tribes of your heritage. 18

Your holy people held possession for a little while;

our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary. 19

We have become like those over whom you have never ruled,

like those who are not called by your name.

ISAIAH 64

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64:1

Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,

that the mountains might quake at your presence— 2

as when fire kindles brushwood

and the fire causes water to boil—

to make your name known to your adversaries,

and that the nations might tremble at your presence! 3

When you did awesome things that we did not look for,

you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 4

From of old no one has heard

or perceived by the ear,

no eye has seen a God besides you,

who acts for those who wait for him. 5

You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,

those who remember you in your ways.

Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;

in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved? 6

We have all become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf,

and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7

There is no one who calls upon your name,

who rouses himself to take hold of you;

for you have hidden your face from us,

and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
8

But now, O Lord, you are our Father;

we are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand. 9

Be not so terribly angry, O Lord,

and remember not iniquity forever.

Behold, please look, we are all your people. 10

Your holy cities have become a wilderness;

Zion has become a wilderness,

Jerusalem a desolation. 11

Our holy and beautiful house,

where our fathers praised you,

has been burned by fire,

and all our pleasant places have become ruins. 12

Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord?

Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly?

PROVERBS 5

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Warning Against Adultery5:1

My son, be attentive to my wisdom;

incline your ear to my understanding, 2

that you may keep discretion,

and your lips may guard knowledge. 3

For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey,

and her speech is smoother than oil, 4

but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword. 5

Her feet go down to death;

her steps follow the path to Sheol; 6

she does not ponder the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.
7

And now, O sons, listen to me,

and do not depart from the words of my mouth. 8

Keep your way far from her,

and do not go near the door of her house, 9

lest you give your honor to others

and your years to the merciless, 10

lest strangers take their fill of your strength,

and your labors go to the house of a foreigner, 11

and at the end of your life you groan,

when your flesh and body are consumed, 12

and you say, “How I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof! 13

I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my instructors. 14

I am at the brink of utter ruin

in the assembled congregation.”
15

Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well. 16

Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets? 17

Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers with you. 18

Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth, 19

a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;

be intoxicated always in her love. 20

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? 21

For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,

and he ponders all his paths. 22

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,

and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. 23

He dies for lack of discipline,

and because of his great folly he is led astray.

JAMES 4

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Warning Against Worldliness  4:1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
    11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? Boasting About Tomorrow13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.