Sunday, April 23, 2023

Proverbs 5

¹My son, pay attention to my wisdom, listen well to my words of insight, ²that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge. ³For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; ⁴but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. ⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. ⁶She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths are crooked, but she knows it not.

⁷Now then, my sons, listen to me; do not turn aside from what I say. ⁸Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house, ⁹lest you give your best strength to others and your years to one who is cruel, ¹⁰lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich another man's house. ¹¹At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent. ¹²You will say, "How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction! ¹³I would not obey my teachers or listen to my instructors. ¹⁴I have come to the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly."

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. ¹⁶Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? ¹⁷Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. ¹⁸May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. ¹⁹A loving doe, a graceful deer-- may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love. ²⁰Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?

²¹For a man's ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all his paths. ²²The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast. ²³He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.

 

 

Psalm 102

¹A prayer of an afflicted man. When he is faint and pours out his lament before the LORD. Hear my prayer, O LORD; let my cry for help come to you. ²Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly. ³For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers. ⁴My heart is blighted and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food. ⁵Because of my loud groaning I am reduced to skin and bones. ⁶I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. ⁷I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof. ⁸All day long my enemies taunt me; those who rail against me use my name as a curse. ⁹For I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears ¹⁰because of your great wrath, for you have taken me up and thrown me aside. ¹¹My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass. ¹²But you, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations. ¹³You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her; the appointed time has come. ¹⁴For her stones are dear to your servants; her very dust moves them to pity. ¹⁵The nations will fear the name of the LORD, all the kings of the earth will revere your glory. ¹⁶For the LORD will rebuild Zion and appear in his glory. ¹⁷He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea. ¹⁸Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the LORD: ¹⁹"The LORD looked down from his sanctuary on high, from heaven he viewed the earth, ²⁰to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death." ²¹So the name of the LORD will be declared in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem ²²when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the LORD. ²³In the course of my life he broke my strength; he cut short my days. ²⁴So I said: "Do not take me away, O my God, in the midst of my days; your years go on through all generations. ²⁵In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. ²⁶They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. ²⁷But you remain the same, and your years will never end. ²⁸The children of your servants will live in your presence; their descendants will be established before you."

 

 

Hebrews 9:11–28

¹¹When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. ¹²He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. ¹³The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. ¹⁴How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

¹⁵For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance--now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

¹⁶In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, ¹⁷because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. ¹⁸This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. ¹⁹When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. ²⁰He said, "This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep." ²¹In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. ²²In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

²³It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. ²⁴For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. ²⁵Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. ²⁶Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.