He gives power to the weak. He increases the strength of him who has no might. Isaiah 41:29

Isaiah 39-41

Isaiah 39

Hezekiah Shows His Treasure

¹ At that time, Merodach Baladan the son of Baladan king of Babylon sent letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. ² Hezekiah was pleased with them and showed them the treasure-house of things: the silver, the gold, the spices, and the precious oil, and his whole armory, and everything that was found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah did not show them.

³ Then Isaiah the prophet came to king Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men say? From where did they come to you?”

Hezekiah said, “They have come from a country far from me, from Babylon.”

⁴ Then Isaiah asked, “What have they seen in your house?”

Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing among my treasures that I have not shown them.”

⁵ Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of Hosts: ⁶ ‘The days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up until today, will be taken to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. ⁷ ‘They will take some of your descendants who will be born to you, whom you shall father, and they will be eunuchs in the king of Babylon’s palace.’ ”

⁸ Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good.” He said moreover, “For there will be peace and truth in my days.”

Isaiah 40

Prepare the Way for the Lord

¹ “Comfort, comfort my people,”
says your God.
² “Speak comfort to Jerusalem
and call out to her that her warfare is over,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received of the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.”

³ The voice of one calling:

“Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness!
Make a level highway in the desert for our God.
⁴ Every valley shall be exalted,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The uneven shall be made level,
and the rough places a plain.
⁵ The glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”

The Word of the Lord Stands Forever

⁶ The voice of one saying, “Cry!”
One said, “What shall I cry?”
“All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory is like the flower of the field.
⁷ The grass withers,
the flower fades,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are like grass.
⁸ The grass withers,
the flower fades,
but the word of our God stands forever.”

The Lord Will Gather His People

⁹ You who tell good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who tell good news to Jerusalem,
lift up your voice with strength!
Lift it up! Do not be afraid!
Say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”
¹⁰ The Lord God will come with strength,
his rule established by his mighty power.
His reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
¹¹ He will feed his flock like a shepherd.
He will gather the lambs in his arm,
and carry them in his bosom.
He will gently lead those who have their young.

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
and marked off the heavens with his span,
and calculated the dust of the earth in a measuring basket,
and weighed the mountains in scales,
and the hills in a balance?
¹³ Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,
or has taught him as his counselor?
¹⁴ Who did he take counsel with,
and who instructed him,
and taught him in the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?

¹⁵ The nations are like a drop in a bucket
and are regarded as a speck of dust on a balance.
He lifts up the islands like a very little thing.
¹⁶ Lebanon is not sufficient to burn,
nor its animals sufficient for a burnt offering.
¹⁷ All the nations are like nothing before him.
They are regarded by him as less than nothing, and vanity.

¹⁸ To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to him?
¹⁹ A workman has cast an image,
and the goldsmith overlays it with gold
and casts silver chains for it.
²⁰ He who is too impoverished for such an offering
chooses a tree that will not rot.
He seeks a skillful workman
to set up a carved image for him that will not be moved.

²¹ Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Have you not been told from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
²² It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in,
²³ who brings princes to nothing,
who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.
²⁴ They are planted scarcely.
They are sown scarcely.
Their stock has scarcely taken root in the ground.
He merely blows on them, and they wither,
and the whirlwind takes them away as stubble.

²⁵ “To whom then will you liken me?
Who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
²⁶ Lift up your eyes on high
and see who has created these,
who brings out their army by number.
He calls them all by name.
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power,
not one is lacking.

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and the justice due me is disregarded by my God?”
²⁸ Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The Lord, the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint.
He is not weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the weak.
He increases the strength of him who has no might.
³⁰ Even the youths faint and get weary,
and the young men utterly fall,
³¹ but those who wait for the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will mount up with wings like eagles.
They will run, and not be weary.
They will walk, and not faint.

Isaiah 41

The Lord Will Help

¹ “Keep silent before me, islands
and let the peoples renew their strength.
Let them come near,
then let them speak.
Let us meet together for judgment.

² Who has raised up one from the east?
Who called him in righteousness to his feet?
He hands over nations to him
and makes him rule over kings.
He gives them like the dust to his sword,
like the driven stubble to his bow.

³ He pursues them
and passes by safely,
by a way that he had not gone with his feet.

⁴ Who has worked and carried this through,
calling the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord, the first and the last, I am he.”

⁵ The islands have seen, and fear.
The ends of the earth tremble.
They approach, and come.
⁶ Everyone helps his neighbor.
They say to their brothers, “Be strong!”

⁷ So the carpenter encourages the goldsmith.
He who smooths with the hammer
encourages him who strikes the anvil,
saying of the welding, “It is good,”
and he fastens it with nails,
that it might not totter.

⁸ “But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham my friend,
⁹ you whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the earth,
and called from its corners,
and said to you, ‘You are my servant.
I have chosen you and have not cast you away.
¹⁰ Do not be afraid, for I am with you.
Do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you.
Yes, I will help you.
Yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.

¹¹ All those who are incensed against you will be disappointed and confounded.
Those who strive with you will be like nothing and shall perish.

¹² You will seek them
and will not find them,
those who contend with you.
Those who wage war against you will be as nothing,
as a non-existent thing.

¹³ For I, the Lord your God,
will hold your right hand,
saying to you, ‘Do not be afraid.
I will help you.’

¹⁴ Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob,
and you men of Israel.
I will help you,” says the Lord.
“Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁵ I have made you into a new sharp threshing instrument with teeth.
You will thresh the mountains,
and beat them small
and will make the hills like chaff.

¹⁶ You will winnow them,
and the wind will carry them away,
and the whirlwind will scatter them.
You will rejoice in the Lord.
You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷ The poor and needy seek water,
and there is none.
Their tongue fails for thirst.
I, the Lord, will answer them.
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

¹⁸ I will open rivers on the bare heights
and springs in the middle of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water
and the dry land springs of water.

¹⁹ I will put cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oil trees in the wilderness.
I will set cypress trees, pine, and box trees together in the desert,
²⁰ that they may see, know, consider, and understand together,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
and the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Worthless Idols

²¹ Present your case,” says the Lord.
“Bring out your best reasoning!” says the King of Jacob.
²² “Let them announce and declare to us what will happen!
Declare the former things, what they are,
that we may consider them,
and know the latter end of them,
or show us things to come.
²³ Declare the things that are to come hereafter,
that we may know that you are gods.
Yes, do good, or do evil,
that we may be dismayed,
and see it together.
²⁴ You are nothing,
and your work is nothing.
He who chooses you is an abomination.

²⁵ “I have raised up one from the north, and he has come,
from the rising of the sun, one who calls on my name,
and he shall come on rulers as on mortar,
and as the potter treads clay.

²⁶ Who has declared it from the beginning,
that we may know?
and before, that we may say, ‘He is right?’
Surely, there is no one who declares.
Surely, there is no one who shows.
Surely, there is no one who hears your words.

²⁷ I am the first to say to Zion, ‘Look at them,’
and I will give one who brings good news to Jerusalem.
²⁸ When I look, there is no man,
among them there is no counselor who,
when I ask of them, can answer a word.

²⁹ See, all of them are nothing.
Their deeds produce nothing.
Their molten images are wind and confusion.

Ephesians 1

Paul’s Greeting

¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus:

² Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love, ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire, ⁶ to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved. ⁷ In him we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸ which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and understanding.⁹ He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, in him.

¹¹ We were also assigned an inheritance in him, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will, ¹² to the end that we we who had before hoped in the Messiah should be to the praise of his glory. ¹³ In him you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation—in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.

Prayer for Spiritual Wisdom

¹⁵ For this reason, having heard of the faith among you, in the Lord Jesus, and the love which you have toward all the saints, ¹⁶ I do not cease to give thanks for you. I mention you in my prayers, ¹⁷ that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, ¹⁸ having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might ²⁰ which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. ²² He put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him to be head over all things for the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Psalm 66

Make a Joyful Noise

For the Chief Musician. A song. A Psalm.

¹ Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth!
² Sing to the glory of his name!
Offer glory and praise!
³ Tell God, “How awesome are your deeds!
Through the greatness of your power,
your enemies submit themselves to you.
⁴ All the earth will worship you
and will sing to you,
They will sing to your name.”

Selah.

⁵ Come, and see the works of God—
awesome work on behalf of mankind.
⁶ He turned the sea into dry land.
They went through the river on foot.
There, we rejoiced in him.
⁷ He rules by his might forever.
His eyes watch the nations.
Do not let the rebellious rise up against him.

Selah.

⁸ Praise our God, you peoples!
Make the sound of his praise heard,
⁹ who preserves our life among the living,
and does not allow our feet to be moved.
¹⁰ For you, God, have tested us.
You have refined us, as silver is refined.
¹¹ You brought us into prison.
You laid a burden on our backs.
¹² You allowed men to ride over our heads.
We went through fire and through water,
but you brought us to the place of abundance.
¹³ I will come into your temple with burnt offerings.
I will pay my vows to you,
¹⁴ which my lips promised,
and my mouth spoke, when I was in distress.
¹⁵ I will offer to you burnt offerings of fat animals.
with the offering of rams,
I will offer bulls with goats.

Selah.

¹⁶ Come and hear, all you who fear God.
I will declare what he has done for my soul.
¹⁷ I cried to him with my mouth.
He was extolled with my tongue.
¹⁸ If I cherished sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
¹⁹ But most certainly, God has listened.
He has heard the voice of my prayer.
²⁰ Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer,
nor his loving kindness from me.

Proverbs 23:25-28

²⁵ Let your father and your mother be glad!
Let her who bore you rejoice!
²⁶ My son, give me your heart,
and let your eyes keep in my ways.
²⁷ For a prostitute is a deep pit,
and a wayward wife is a narrow well.
²⁸ Yes, she lies in wait like a robber,
and increases the unfaithful among men.

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