One Year Bible.

Tried but Trusting

¹A prayer of David.

Incline Your ear, O LORD, and answer me,

for I am poor and needy.

²Preserve my soul, for I am godly.

You are my God; save Your servant who trusts in You.

³Be merciful to me, O Lord,

for I call to You all day long.

⁴Bring joy to Your servant,

for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

⁵For You, O Lord, are kind and forgiving,

rich in loving devotion to all who call on You.

⁶Hear my prayer, O LORD,

and attend to my plea for mercy.

⁷In the day of my distress I call on You,

because You answer me.

⁸O Lord, there is none like You among the gods,

nor any works like Yours.

⁹All the nations You have made

will come and bow before You, O Lord,

and they will glorify Your name.

¹⁰For You are great and perform wonders;

You alone are God.

¹¹Teach me Your way, O LORD,

that I may walk in Your truth.

Give me an undivided heart,

that I may fear Your name.

¹²I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart;

I will glorify Your name forever.

¹³For great is Your loving devotion to me;

You have delivered me from the depths of Sheol.

¹⁴The arrogant rise against me, O God;

a band of ruthless men seeks my life;

they have no regard for You.

¹⁵But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,

slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.

¹⁶Turn to me and have mercy;

grant Your strength to Your servant;

save the son of Your maidservant.

¹⁷Show me a sign of Your goodness,

that my enemies may see and be ashamed;

for You, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

Paul’s Greeting to Titus

¹Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, ²in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. ³In His own time He has made His word evident in the proclamation entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior.

⁴To Titus, my true child in our common faith:

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

Appointing Elders on Crete

⁵The reason I left you in Crete was that you would set in order what was unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you. ⁶An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, having children who are believers and who are not open to accusation of indiscretion or insubordination.

⁷As God’s steward, an overseer must be above reproach — not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not greedy for money. ⁸Instead, he must be hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. ⁹He must hold firmly to the faithful word as it was taught, so that he can encourage others by sound teaching and refute those who contradict it.

Correcting False Teachers

¹⁰For many are rebellious and full of empty talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision, ¹¹who must be silenced. For the sake of dishonorable gain, they undermine entire households and teach things they should not. ¹²As one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”

¹³This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sternly, so that they will be sound in the faith ¹⁴and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of men who have rejected the truth.

¹⁵To the pure, all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Indeed, both their minds and their consciences are defiled. ¹⁶They profess to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.

The Beast from the Sea

¹Then I saw a beast with ten horns and seven heads rising out of the sea. There were ten royal crowns on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. ²The beast I saw was like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.

³One of the heads of the beast appeared to have been mortally wounded. But the mortal wound was healed, and the whole world marveled and followed the beast. ⁴They worshiped the dragon who had given authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can wage war against it?”

⁵The beast was given a mouth to speak arrogant and blasphemous words, and authority to act for 42 months. ⁶And the beast opened its mouth to speak blasphemies against God and to slander His name and His tabernacle — those who dwell in heaven.

⁷Then the beast was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them, and it was given authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. ⁸And all who dwell on the earth will worship the beast — all whose names have not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb who was slain.

⁹He who has an ear, let him hear:

¹⁰“If anyone is destined for captivity,

into captivity he will go;

if anyone is to die by the sword,

by the sword he must be killed.”

Here is a call for the perseverance and faith of the saints.

The Beast from the Earth

¹¹Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. This beast had two horns like a lamb, but spoke like a dragon. ¹²And this beast exercised all the authority of the first beast and caused the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed.

¹³And the second beast performed great signs, even causing fire from heaven to come down to earth in the presence of the people. ¹⁴Because of the signs it was given to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived those who dwell on the earth, telling them to make an image to the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet had lived. ¹⁵The second beast was permitted to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship it to be killed.

The Mark of the Beast

¹⁶And the second beast required all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, ¹⁷so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark — the name of the beast or the number of its name.

¹⁸Here is a call for wisdom: Let the one who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and that number is 666.