Deuteronomy 7 - 8, 1 Corinthians 1 - 2, Psalm 108

Devote the Nations to Destruction

7“^aWhen 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, ^bseven nations more numerous and stronger than you, ²and when Yahweh your God gives them over before you and you strike them down, ^athen you shall devote them to destruction. ^bYou shall cut no covenant with them ^cand show no favor to them. ³“Furthermore, ^ayou shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your ¹daughters to ²their sons, nor shall you take ³their daughters for your ⁴sons. ⁴“For ¹they will turn your ²sons away from ³following Me, and they will serve other gods; then the anger of Yahweh will be kindled against you, and ^aHe will quickly destroy you. ⁵“But thus you shall do to them: ^ayou shall tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and cut their ¹Asherim in pieces and burn their graven images with fire. ⁶“For you are ^aa holy people to Yahweh your God; Yahweh your God has chosen you to be ^ba people for His ¹own treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the ²earth.

⁷“^aYahweh 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, ⁸but because Yahweh loved you and kept the ^aoath which He swore to your fathers, ^bYahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of ¹slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹“You shall know therefore that Yahweh your God, ^aHe is God, ^bthe faithful God, ^cwho keeps ¹His covenant and ²His lovingkindness to a thousand generations with those who ^dlove Him and keep His commandments; ¹⁰but ^arepays those who hate Him to ¹their faces, to make ²them perish; He will not delay ³with 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“^aThen it will be, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you ¹His covenant and ²His lovingkindness which He swore to your fathers. ¹³“And He will ^alove you and bless you and ^bmultiply 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, ¹in 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 ^abarren among you or among your cattle. ¹⁵“^aAnd 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; ^ayour eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be ^ba snare to you.

¹⁷“If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are more numerous than I; how can I ^adispossess them?’ ¹⁸you shall not be afraid of them; you shall well ^aremember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: ¹⁹^athe 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 ^athe hornet against them until those who remain and hide themselves from you perish. ²¹“You shall not dread ¹them, for ^aYahweh your God is in your midst, ^ba great and fearsome God. ²²“^aAnd 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 ¹wild beasts become too numerous for you. ²³“^aBut Yahweh your God will give them over before you and will ¹throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. ²⁴“^aAnd He will give their kings into your hand so that you will make their name perish from under heaven; ^bno man will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. ²⁵“The graven images of their gods you are to ^aburn with fire; you shall ^bnot covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be ^csnared by it, for it is an ^dabomination to Yahweh your God. ²⁶“And you shall not bring an abomination into your house and become devoted to ^adestruction 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

8“The entire commandment that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you ^amay live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to give to your fathers. ²“^aAnd you shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has ^bled you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, ^ctesting 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 ^aman does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh. ⁴“^aYour clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. ⁵“^aThus 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 ¹fear Him. ⁷“For ^aYahweh 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; ⁸a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; ⁹a 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 ^ayou will eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless Yahweh your God for the good land which He has given you.

¹¹“¹Beware lest you ^aforget Yahweh your God by not keeping His commandments and His judgments and His statutes which I am commanding you today; ¹²lest ^ayou eat and are satisfied and build good houses and live in them, ¹³and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, ¹⁴and your heart becomes ¹lifted up and you ^aforget Yahweh your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of ²slavery. ¹⁵“He led you through ^athe great and fearsome wilderness, with its ^bfiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He ^cbrought water for you out of the rock of flint. ¹⁶“In the wilderness He fed you manna ^awhich your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might ^btest you, to do good for you ¹in the end, ¹⁷lest ^ayou 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 ^ait 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, ^aI testify against you today that you will surely perish. ²⁰“Like the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you, so ^ayou shall perish, because you would not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.

Christ Is Undivided

1Paul, ^acalled as an apostle of Jesus Christ ¹by ^bthe will of God, and ^cSosthenes our ^dbrother,

²To ^athe church of God which is at ^bCorinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, ^ccalled as ¹saints, with all who in every place ^dcall on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

³^aGrace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴^aI thank ¹my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, ⁵that in everything you were ^aenriched in Him, in all ^bword and ^call knowledge, ⁶even as ^athe witness about Christ was confirmed ¹in you, ⁷so that you are not lacking in any gift, ^aeagerly awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁸^awho will also confirm you to the end, beyond reproach in ^bthe day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹^aGod is faithful, through whom you were ^bcalled into ^cfellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹⁰Now ^aI exhort you, ^bbrothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all ¹agree and that there be no ²^,^cdivisions among you, but that you be ³made complete in ^dthe same mind and in the same judgment. ¹¹For I have been informed concerning you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. ¹²Now I mean this, that ^aeach one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of ^bApollos,” and “I of ^cCephas,” and “I of Christ.” ¹³¹Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you ^abaptized ²in the name of Paul? ¹⁴¹I thank God that I ^abaptized none of you except ^bCrispus and ^cGaius, ¹⁵so that no one would say you were baptized ¹in my name. ¹⁶Now I did baptize also the ^ahousehold of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. ¹⁷^aFor Christ did not send me to baptize, but to proclaim the gospel, ^bnot in wisdom of word, so that the cross of Christ will not be made empty.

Christ the Power and Wisdom of God

¹⁸For the word of the cross is ^afoolishness to ^bthose who ¹are perishing, but to us who ²are being saved, it is ^cthe power of God. ¹⁹For it is written, “^aI will destroy the wisdom of the wise,And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”

²⁰^aWhere is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of ^bthis age? Has not God ^cmade foolish the wisdom of ^dthe world? ²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, ^athe world through its wisdom did not come to know God, ^bGod was well-pleased, through the ^cfoolishness of the ¹message preached, to ^dsave those who believe. ²²For indeed ^aJews ask for ¹signs and Greeks search for wisdom, ²³but we preach ¹^,^aChrist crucified, ^bto Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles ^cfoolishness, ²⁴but to those who are ^athe called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ ^bthe power of God and ^cthe wisdom of God. ²⁵Because the ^afoolishness of God is wiser than men, and ^bthe weakness of God is stronger than men.

²⁶For ¹consider your ^acalling, brothers, that there were ^bnot many wise according to ²the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. ²⁷But ^aGod has chosen the foolish things of ^bthe world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of ^cthe world to shame the things which are strong, ²⁸and the base things of ^athe world and the despised God has chosen, ^bthe things that are not, so that He may ^cabolish the things that are, ²⁹so that ^ano flesh may boast before God. ³⁰But by His doing you are in ^aChrist Jesus, who became to us ^bwisdom from God, ¹and ^crighteousness and ^dsanctification, and ^eredemption, ³¹so that, just as it is written, “^aLet him who boasts, boast in the ¹Lord.”

Paul’s Reliance upon the Spirit

2And when I came to you, brothers, I ^adid not come with superiority of word or of wisdom, proclaiming to you ^bthe ¹witness of God. ²For I determined to know nothing among you except ^aJesus Christ, and Him crucified. ³And I was with you in ^aweakness and in ^bfear and in much trembling, ⁴and my word and my preaching were ^anot in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of ^bthe Spirit and of power, ⁵so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in ^athe power of God.

⁶Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are ^amature, a wisdom, however, not of ^bthis age nor of the rulers of ^cthis age, who are ^dbeing abolished. ⁷But we speak God’s wisdom in a ^amystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God ^bpredestined before the ^cages to our glory, ⁸^awhich none of the rulers of ^bthis age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified ^cthe Lord of glory. ⁹But just as it is written, “^aThings 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.”

¹⁰¹^,^aBut to us God revealed them ^bthrough the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the ^cdepths of God. ¹¹For who among men knows the depths of a man except the ^aspirit of the man which is in him? Even so the depths of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. ¹²Now we ^ahave received, not the spirit of ^bthe world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God, ¹³of which depths we also speak, ^anot in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, ¹combining spiritual depths with spiritual words.

¹⁴But ¹a ^anatural man ^bdoes not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are ^cfoolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because ^dthey are spiritually examined. ¹⁵But he who is ^aspiritual examines all things, yet he himself is examined by no one. ¹⁶For ^awho has known the mind of the ¹Lord, that he will direct Him? But ^bwe have the mind of Christ.

He Will Tread Down Our Adversaries

108

A Song. A Psalm of David.

^aMy heart is set, O God;I will sing, I will sing praises, even with my glory.²Awake, harp and lyre;I will awaken the dawn!³I will give thanks to You, O Yahweh, among the peoples,And I will sing praises to You among the nations.⁴For Your ^alovingkindness is great ^babove the heavens,And Your truth reaches to the skies.⁵^aBe exalted above the heavens, O God,And Your glory above all the earth.⁶^aThat Your beloved may be rescued,Save with Your right hand, and answer me!⁷God has spoken in His ¹holiness:“I will exult, I will portion out ShechemAnd measure out the valley of Succoth.⁸“Gilead is Mine, Manasseh is Mine;Ephraim also is the ¹helmet of My head;^aJudah is My ²scepter.⁹“Moab is My washbowl;Over Edom I shall throw My shoe;Over Philistia I will make a loud shout.”¹⁰^aWho will bring me into the well-defended city?Who ¹will lead me to Edom?¹¹Have You, O God, not ^arejected us?And will You, O God, not go forth with our armies?¹²Oh give us help against the adversary,For ^asalvation ¹by man is worthless.¹³¹Through God we shall do valiantly,And ^ait is He who will tread down our adversaries.