Deuteronomy 7 - 8

Devote the Nations to Destruction

“When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and He clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and stronger than you, 2 and when Yahweh your God gives them over before you and you strike them down, then you shall devote them to destruction. You shall cut no covenant with them and show no favor to them. 3 Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. 4 For they will turn your sons away from following Me, and they will serve other gods; then the anger of Yahweh will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you. 5 But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut their Asherim in pieces and burn their graven images with fire. 6 For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God; Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for His own treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 “Yahweh did not set His affection on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but because Yahweh loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your fathers, Yahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 You shall know therefore that Yahweh your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; 10 but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to make them perish; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. 11 Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.

Yahweh’s Covenant Blessings

12 “Then it will be, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your fathers. 13 And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle. 15 And Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will give them to all who hate you. 16 And you shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God will give over to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. 17 “If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are more numerous than I; how can I dispossess them?’ 18 you shall not be afraid of them; you shall well remember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which Yahweh your God brought you out. So shall Yahweh your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover, Yahweh your God will send the hornet against them until those who remain and hide themselves from you perish. 21 You shall not dread them, for Yahweh your God is in your midst, a great and fearsome God. 22 And Yahweh your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, lest the wild beasts become too numerous for you. 23 But Yahweh your God will give them over before you and will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 And He will give their kings into your hand so that you will make their name perish from under heaven; no man will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. 25 The graven images of their gods you are to burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it, for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God. 26 And you shall not bring an abomination into your house and become devoted to destruction like it; you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.

Do Not Forget Yahweh Your God

“The entire commandment that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 And He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5 Thus you shall know in your heart that Yahweh your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. 7 For Yahweh your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; 9 a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 And so you will eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless Yahweh your God for the good land which He has given you. 11 “Beware lest you forget Yahweh your God by not keeping His commandments and His judgments and His statutes which I am commanding you today; 12 lest you eat and are satisfied and build good houses and live in them, 13 and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, 14 and your heart becomes lifted up and you forget Yahweh your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 15 He led you through the great and fearsome wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. 16 In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end, 17 lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand made me this wealth.’ 18 But you shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 Now it will be, if you ever forget Yahweh your God and walk after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. 20 Like the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you, so you shall perish, because you would not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.

1 Corinthians 1 - 2

Christ Is Undivided

Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, 2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all word and all knowledge, 6 even as the witness about Christ was confirmed in you, 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, eagerly awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will also confirm you to the end, beyond reproach in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 10 Now I exhort you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11 For I have been informed concerning you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. 12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. 16 Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the gospel, not in wisdom of word, so that the cross of Christ will not be made empty.

Christ the Power and Wisdom of God

18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”

20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased, through the foolishness of the message preached, to save those who believe. 22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For consider your calling, brothers, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are, 29 so that no flesh may boast before God. 30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 31 so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Paul’s Reliance upon the Spirit

And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come with superiority of word or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the witness of God. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my word and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 6 Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are being abolished. 7 But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages to our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But just as it is written,

“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard,

And which have not entered the heart of man,

All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

10 But to us God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the depths of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the depths of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God, 13 of which depths we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined. 15 But he who is spiritual examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will direct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Psalm 108

He Will Tread Down Our Adversaries

A Song. A Psalm of David.

My heart is set, O God;

I will sing, I will sing praises, even with my glory.

Awake, harp and lyre;

I will awaken the dawn!

I will give thanks to You, O Yahweh, among the peoples,

And I will sing praises to You among the nations.

For Your lovingkindness is great above the heavens,

And Your truth reaches to the skies.

Be exalted above the heavens, O God,

And Your glory above all the earth.

That Your beloved may be rescued,

Save with Your right hand, and answer me!

God has spoken in His holiness:

“I will exult, I will portion out Shechem

And measure out the valley of Succoth.

Gilead is Mine, Manasseh is Mine;

Ephraim also is the helmet of My head;

Judah is My scepter.

Moab is My washbowl;

Over Edom I shall throw My shoe;

Over Philistia I will make a loud shout.”

Who will bring me into the well‑defended city?

Who will lead me to Edom?

Have You, O God, not rejected us?

And will You, O God, not go forth with our armies?

Oh give us help against the adversary,

For salvation by man is worthless.

Through God we shall do valiantly,

And it is He who will tread down our adversaries.