1 O God, do not be silent.
Do not ignore us. Do not be inactive, O God.
2 For look, your enemies are making a commotion;
those who hate you are hostile.
3 They carefully plot against your people,
and make plans to harm the ones you cherish.
4 They say, “Come on, let’s annihilate them so they are no longer a nation.
Then the name of Israel will be remembered no more.”
5 Yes, they devise a unified strategy;
they form an alliance against you.
6 It includes the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites,
7 Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek,
Philistia and the inhabitants of Tyre.
8 Even Assyria has allied with them,
lending its strength to the descendants of Lot. (Selah)
9 Do to them as you did to Midian—
as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River.
10 They were destroyed at Endor;
their corpses were like manure on the ground.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
and all their rulers like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 who said, “Let’s take over the pastures of God.”
13 O my God, make them like dead thistles,
like dead weeds blown away by the wind.
14 Like the fire that burns down the forest,
or the flames that consume the mountainsides,
15 chase them with your gale winds,
and terrify them with your windstorm.
16 Cover their faces with shame,
so they might seek you, O Lord.
17 May they be humiliated and continually terrified.
May they die in shame.
18 Then they will know that you alone are the Lord,
the Most High over all the earth.
1 How lovely is the place where you live,
O Lord of Heaven’s Armies!
2 I desperately want to be
in the courts of the Lord’s temple.
My heart and my entire being shout for joy
to the living God.
3 Even the birds find a home there,
and the swallow builds a nest,
where she can protect her young
near your altars, O Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
my King and my God.
4 How blessed are those who live in your temple
and praise you continually. (Selah)
5 How blessed are those who find their strength in you,
and long to travel the roads that lead to your temple.
6 As they pass through the Baca Valley,
he provides a spring for them.
The rain even covers it with pools of water.
7 They are sustained as they travel along;
each one appears before God in Zion.
8 O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies,
hear my prayer.
Listen, O God of Jacob. (Selah)
9 O God, take notice of our shield.
Show concern for your chosen king.
10 Certainly spending just one day in your temple courts is better
than spending a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather stand at the entrance to the temple of my God
than live in the tents of the wicked.
11 For the Lord God is our sovereign protector.
The Lord bestows favor and honor;
he withholds no good thing from those who have integrity.
12 O Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
how blessed are those who trust in you.
1 Jesus said to his disciples, “Stumbling blocks are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 Watch yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. 4 Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 So the Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this black mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled out by the roots and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
7 “Would any one of you say to your slave who comes in from the field after plowing or shepherding sheep, ‘Come at once and sit down for a meal’? 8 Won’t the master instead say to him, ‘Get my dinner ready, and make yourself ready to serve me while I eat and drink. Then you may eat and drink’? 9 He won’t thank the slave because he did what he was told, will he? 10 So you too, when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say, ‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.’”
11 Now on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was entering a village, ten men with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance, 13 raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went along, they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He fell with his face to the ground at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. (Now he was a Samaritan.) 17 Then Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Was no one found to turn back and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to the man, “Get up and go your way. Your faith has made you well.”
20 Now at one point the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was coming, so he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
22 Then he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 Then people will say to you, ‘Look, there he is!’ or ‘Look, here he is!’ Do not go out or chase after them. 24 For just like the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage—right up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, people were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; 29 but on the day Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 It will be the same on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day, anyone who is on the roof, with his goods in the house, must not come down to take them away, and likewise the person in the field must not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
37 Then the disciples said to him, “Where, Lord?” He replied to them, “Where the dead body is, there the vultures will gather.”