YR 116

Before you read God's Word each day, seek His help with these 5 prayers:

1. God, give me wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
2. God, let any knowledge I gain serve to help me love You and others more, and not puff me up.
3. God, help me see something new about You I've never seen before.
4. God, correct any lies I believe about You or anything I misunderstand.
5. God, direct my steps according to Your Word.

Psalm 73; Psalms 77–78

Book Three

God Is My Strength and Portion Forever (Listen)

A Psalm of Asaph.

73:1   Truly God is good to Israel,
    to those who are pure in heart.
2   But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
    my steps had nearly slipped.
3   For I was envious of the arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4   For they have no pangs until death;
    their bodies are fat and sleek.
5   They are not in trouble as others are;
    they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6   Therefore pride is their necklace;
    violence covers them as a garment.
7   Their eyes swell out through fatness;
    their hearts overflow with follies.
8   They scoff and speak with malice;
    loftily they threaten oppression.
9   They set their mouths against the heavens,
    and their tongue struts through the earth.
10   Therefore his people turn back to them,
    and find no fault in them.
11   And they say, “How can God know?
    Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12   Behold, these are the wicked;
    always at ease, they increase in riches.
13   All in vain have I kept my heart clean
    and washed my hands in innocence.
14   For all the day long I have been stricken
    and rebuked every morning.
15   If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16   But when I thought how to understand this,
    it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17   until I went into the sanctuary of God;
    then I discerned their end.
18   Truly you set them in slippery places;
    you make them fall to ruin.
19   How they are destroyed in a moment,
    swept away utterly by terrors!
20   Like a dream when one awakes,
    O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21   When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
22   I was brutish and ignorant;
    I was like a beast toward you.
23   Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
    you hold my right hand.
24   You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25   Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26   My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27   For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
    you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28   But for me it is good to be near God;
    I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
    that I may tell of all your works.

(ESV)

In the Day of Trouble I Seek the Lord (Listen)

To the choirmaster: according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph.

77:1   I cry aloud to God,
    aloud to God, and he will hear me.
2   In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord;
    in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying;
    my soul refuses to be comforted.
3   When I remember God, I moan;
    when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah
4   You hold my eyelids open;
    I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5   I consider the days of old,
    the years long ago.
6   I said, “Let me remember my song in the night;
    let me meditate in my heart.”
    Then my spirit made a diligent search:
7   “Will the Lord spurn forever,
    and never again be favorable?
8   Has his steadfast love forever ceased?
    Are his promises at an end for all time?
9   Has God forgotten to be gracious?
    Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah
10   Then I said, “I will appeal to this,
    to the years of the right hand of the Most High.”
11   I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
    yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
12   I will ponder all your work,
    and meditate on your mighty deeds.
13   Your way, O God, is holy.
    What god is great like our God?
14   You are the God who works wonders;
    you have made known your might among the peoples.
15   You with your arm redeemed your people,
    the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
16   When the waters saw you, O God,
    when the waters saw you, they were afraid;
    indeed, the deep trembled.
17   The clouds poured out water;
    the skies gave forth thunder;
    your arrows flashed on every side.
18   The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind;
    your lightnings lighted up the world;
    the earth trembled and shook.
19   Your way was through the sea,
    your path through the great waters;
    yet your footprints were unseen.
20   You led your people like a flock
    by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Tell the Coming Generation (Listen)

A Maskil of Asaph.

78:1   Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
    incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
2   I will open my mouth in a parable;
    I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3   things that we have heard and known,
    that our fathers have told us.
4   We will not hide them from their children,
    but tell to the coming generation
  the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
    and the wonders that he has done.
5   He established a testimony in Jacob
    and appointed a law in Israel,
  which he commanded our fathers
    to teach to their children,
6   that the next generation might know them,
    the children yet unborn,
  and arise and tell them to their children,
7     so that they should set their hope in God
  and not forget the works of God,
    but keep his commandments;
8   and that they should not be like their fathers,
    a stubborn and rebellious generation,
  a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
    whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9   The Ephraimites, armed with the bow,
    turned back on the day of battle.
10   They did not keep God’s covenant,
    but refused to walk according to his law.
11   They forgot his works
    and the wonders that he had shown them.
12   In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders
    in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.
13   He divided the sea and let them pass through it,
    and made the waters stand like a heap.
14   In the daytime he led them with a cloud,
    and all the night with a fiery light.
15   He split rocks in the wilderness
    and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16   He made streams come out of the rock
    and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
17   Yet they sinned still more against him,
    rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18   They tested God in their heart
    by demanding the food they craved.
19   They spoke against God, saying,
    “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
20   He struck the rock so that water gushed out
    and streams overflowed.
  Can he also give bread
    or provide meat for his people?”
21   Therefore, when the LORD heard, he was full of wrath;
    a fire was kindled against Jacob;
    his anger rose against Israel,
22   because they did not believe in God
    and did not trust his saving power.
23   Yet he commanded the skies above
    and opened the doors of heaven,
24   and he rained down on them manna to eat
    and gave them the grain of heaven.
25   Man ate of the bread of the angels;
    he sent them food in abundance.
26   He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
    and by his power he led out the south wind;
27   he rained meat on them like dust,
    winged birds like the sand of the seas;
28   he let them fall in the midst of their camp,
    all around their dwellings.
29   And they ate and were well filled,
    for he gave them what they craved.
30   But before they had satisfied their craving,
    while the food was still in their mouths,
31   the anger of God rose against them,
    and he killed the strongest of them
    and laid low the young men of Israel.
32   In spite of all this, they still sinned;
    despite his wonders, they did not believe.
33   So he made their days vanish like a breath,
    and their years in terror.
34   When he killed them, they sought him;
    they repented and sought God earnestly.
35   They remembered that God was their rock,
    the Most High God their redeemer.
36   But they flattered him with their mouths;
    they lied to him with their tongues.
37   Their heart was not steadfast toward him;
    they were not faithful to his covenant.
38   Yet he, being compassionate,
    atoned for their iniquity
    and did not destroy them;
  he restrained his anger often
    and did not stir up all his wrath.
39   He remembered that they were but flesh,
    a wind that passes and comes not again.
40   How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
    and grieved him in the desert!
41   They tested God again and again
    and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42   They did not remember his power
    or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,
43   when he performed his signs in Egypt
    and his marvels in the fields of Zoan.
44   He turned their rivers to blood,
    so that they could not drink of their streams.
45   He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them,
    and frogs, which destroyed them.
46   He gave their crops to the destroying locust
    and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
47   He destroyed their vines with hail
    and their sycamores with frost.
48   He gave over their cattle to the hail
    and their flocks to thunderbolts.
49   He let loose on them his burning anger,
    wrath, indignation, and distress,
    a company of destroying angels.
50   He made a path for his anger;
    he did not spare them from death,
    but gave their lives over to the plague.
51   He struck down every firstborn in Egypt,
    the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52   Then he led out his people like sheep
    and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53   He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid,
    but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54   And he brought them to his holy land,
    to the mountain which his right hand had won.
55   He drove out nations before them;
    he apportioned them for a possession
    and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
56   Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God
    and did not keep his testimonies,
57   but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers;
    they twisted like a deceitful bow.
58   For they provoked him to anger with their high places;
    they moved him to jealousy with their idols.
59   When God heard, he was full of wrath,
    and he utterly rejected Israel.
60   He forsook his dwelling at Shiloh,
    the tent where he dwelt among mankind,
61   and delivered his power to captivity,
    his glory to the hand of the foe.
62   He gave his people over to the sword
    and vented his wrath on his heritage.
63   Fire devoured their young men,
    and their young women had no marriage song.
64   Their priests fell by the sword,
    and their widows made no lamentation.
65   Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
    like a strong man shouting because of wine.
66   And he put his adversaries to rout;
    he put them to everlasting shame.
67   He rejected the tent of Joseph;
    he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
68   but he chose the tribe of Judah,
    Mount Zion, which he loves.
69   He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
    like the earth, which he has founded forever.
70   He chose David his servant
    and took him from the sheepfolds;
71   from following the nursing ewes he brought him
    to shepherd Jacob his people,
    Israel his inheritance.
72   With upright heart he shepherded them
    and guided them with his skillful hand.

(ESV)

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version© (ESV©) esv.org
Copyright ©️ 2001 by Crossway,
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved.

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