Meditate

29. Renewal of the Covenant

29

These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.

The Covenant Renewed in Moab

² 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,³the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders.⁴But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear.⁵I have led you forty years in the wilderness. The clothes on your back have not worn out, and the sandals on your feet have not worn out;⁶you have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink—so that you may know that I am the Lord your God.⁷When you came to this place, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out against us for battle, but we defeated them.⁸We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.⁹Therefore diligently observe the words of this covenant, in order that you may succeed in everything that you do.

¹⁰ You stand assembled today, all of you, before the Lord your God—the leaders of your tribes, your elders, and your officials, all the men of Israel,¹¹your children, your women, and the aliens who are in your camp, both those who cut your wood and those who draw your water—¹²to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, sworn by an oath, which the Lord your God is making with you today;¹³in order 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 ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.¹⁴I am making this covenant, sworn by an oath, not only with you who stand here with us today before the Lord our God,¹⁵but also with those who are not here with us today.¹⁶You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed.¹⁷You have seen their detestable things, the filthy idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, that were among them.¹⁸It may be that there is among you a man or woman, or a family or tribe, whose heart is already turning away from the Lord our God to serve the gods of those nations. It may be that there is among you a root sprouting poisonous and bitter growth.¹⁹All who hear the words of this oath and bless themselves, thinking in their hearts, “We are safe even though we go our own stubborn ways” (thus bringing disaster on moist and dry alike)—²⁰the Lord will be unwilling to pardon them, for the Lord’s anger and passion will smoke against them. All the curses written in this book will descend on them, and the Lord will blot out their names from under heaven.²¹The Lord will single them 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.²²The next generation, your children who rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who comes from a distant country, will see the devastation of that land and the afflictions with which the Lord has afflicted it—²³all its soil burned out by sulfur and salt, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, unable to support any vegetation, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his fierce anger—²⁴they and indeed all the nations will wonder, “Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused this great display of anger?”²⁵They will conclude, “It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.²⁶They turned and served other gods, worshiping them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them;²⁷so the anger of the Lord was kindled against that land, bringing on it every curse written in this book.²⁸The Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, fury, and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as is now the case.”²⁹The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this law.

9. Sowing Generously

The Collection for Christians at Jerusalem

 9

Now it is not necessary for me to write you about the ministry to the saints,²for I know your eagerness, which is the subject of my boasting about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year; and your zeal has stirred up most of them.³But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you may not prove to have been empty in this case, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be;⁴otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—in this undertaking.⁵So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you, and arrange in advance for this bountiful gift that you have promised, so that it may be ready as a voluntary gift and not as an extortion.

18. Psalm 18

Psalm 18

Royal Thanksgiving for Victory

To the leader. A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:

1

I love you, O Lord, my strength.

2

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,

my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,

my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

3

I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,

so I shall be saved from my enemies.

4

The cords of death encompassed me;

the torrents of perdition assailed me;

5

the cords of Sheol entangled me;

the snares of death confronted me.

6

In my distress I called upon the Lord;

to my God I cried for help.

From his temple he heard my voice,

and my cry to him reached his ears.

7

Then the earth reeled and rocked;

the foundations also of the mountains trembled

and quaked, because he was angry.

8

Smoke went up from his nostrils,

and devouring fire from his mouth;

glowing coals flamed forth from him.

9

He bowed the heavens, and came down;

thick darkness was under his feet.

10

He rode on a cherub, and flew;

he came swiftly upon the wings of the wind.

11

He made darkness his covering around him,

his canopy thick clouds dark with water.

12

Out of the brightness before him

there broke through his clouds

hailstones and coals of fire.

13

The Lord also thundered in the heavens,

and the Most High uttered his voice.

14

And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them;

he flashed forth lightnings, and routed them.

15

Then the channels of the sea were seen,

and the foundations of the world were laid bare

at your rebuke, O Lord,

at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.

16

He reached down from on high, he took me;

he drew me out of mighty waters.

17

He delivered me from my strong enemy,

and from those who hated me;

for they were too mighty for me.

18

They confronted me in the day of my calamity;

but the Lord was my support.

19

He brought me out into a broad place;

he delivered me, because he delighted in me.