One Year Bible.

The Mighty One Calls

¹A Psalm of Asaph.

The Mighty One, God the LORD,

speaks and summons the earth

from where the sun rises to where it sets.

²From Zion, perfect in beauty,

God shines forth.

³Our God approaches and will not be silent!

Consuming fire precedes Him,

and a tempest rages around Him.

⁴He summons the heavens above,

and the earth, that He may judge His people:

⁵“Gather to Me My saints,

who made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”

⁶And the heavens proclaim His righteousness,

for God Himself is Judge.

Selah

⁷“Hear, O My people, and I will speak,

O Israel, and I will testify against you:

I am God, your God.

⁸I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices,

and your burnt offerings are ever before Me.

⁹I have no need for a bull from your stall

or goats from your pens,

¹⁰for every beast of the forest is Mine —

the cattle on a thousand hills.

¹¹I know every bird in the mountains,

and the creatures of the field are Mine.

¹²If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof.

¹³Do I eat the flesh of bulls,

or drink the blood of goats?

¹⁴Sacrifice a thank offering to God,

and fulfill your vows to the Most High.

¹⁵Call upon Me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”

¹⁶To the wicked, however, God says,

“What right have you to recite My statutes

and to bear My covenant on your lips?

¹⁷For you hate My instruction

and cast My words behind you.

¹⁸When you see a thief, you befriend him,

and throw in your lot with adulterers.

¹⁹You unleash your mouth for evil

and harness your tongue to deceit.

²⁰You sit and malign your brother;

you slander your own mother’s son.

²¹You have done these things, and I kept silent;

you thought I was just like you.

But now I rebuke you

and accuse you to your face.

²²Now consider this, you who forget God,

lest I tear you to pieces,

with no one to rescue you:

²³He who sacrifices a thank offering honors Me,

and to him who rightly orders his way,

I will show the salvation of God.”

Paul Greets the Corinthians

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia:

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

The God of All Comfort

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

⁶If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which accomplishes in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we experience. ⁷And our hope for you is sure, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you will share in our comfort.

⁸We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the hardships we encountered in the province of Asia. We were under a burden far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. ⁹Indeed, we felt we were under the sentence of death, in order that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead.

¹⁰He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. In Him we have placed our hope that He will yet again deliver us, ¹¹as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the favor shown us in answer to their prayers.

Paul’s Change of Plans

¹²For this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in relation to you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God — not in worldly wisdom, but in the grace of God. ¹³For we do not write you anything that is beyond your ability to read and understand. And I hope that you will understand us completely, ¹⁴as you have already understood us in part, that you may boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of our Lord Jesus.

¹⁵Confident of this, I planned to visit you first, so that you might receive a double blessing. ¹⁶I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to return to you from Macedonia, and then to have you help me on my way to Judea.

¹⁷When I planned this, did I do it carelessly? Or do I make my plans by human standards, so as to say “Yes, yes” and also “No, no”? ¹⁸But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” ¹⁹For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in Him it has always been “Yes.” ²⁰For all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him, our “Amen” is spoken to the glory of God.

²¹Now it is God who establishes both us and you in Christ. He anointed us, ²²placed His seal on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a pledge of what is to come. ²³I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth. ²⁴Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are fellow workers with you for your joy, because it is by faith that you stand firm.

Nehemiah’s Prayer

¹These are the words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah:

In the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, ²Hanani, one of my brothers, arrived with men from Judah. So I questioned them about the remnant of the Jews who had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.

³And they told me, “The remnant who survived the exile are there in the province, in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”

⁴When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

⁵Then I said:

“O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion with those who love Him and keep His commandments, ⁶let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to hear the prayer that I, Your servant, now pray before You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites.

I confess the sins that we Israelites have committed against You. Both I and my father’s house have sinned. ⁷We have behaved corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that You gave Your servant Moses.

⁸Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses when You said, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, ⁹but if you return to Me and keep and practice My commandments, then even if your exiles have been banished to the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for My Name.’

¹⁰They are Your servants and Your people. You redeemed them by Your great power and mighty hand. ¹¹O Lord, may Your ear be attentive to my prayer and to the prayers of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”

(At that time I was the cupbearer to the king.)

Nehemiah Sent to Jerusalem

¹Now in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was set before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence, ²so the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, though you are not ill? This could only be sadness of the heart.”

I was overwhelmed with fear ³and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”

⁴“What is your request?” replied the king.

So I prayed to the God of heaven ⁵and answered the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city where my fathers are buried, so that I may rebuild it.”

⁶Then the king, with the queen seated beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me, and I set a time.

⁷I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may letters be given to me for the governors west of the Euphrates, so that they will grant me safe passage until I reach Judah. ⁸And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so that he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel to the temple, for the city wall, and for the house I will occupy.”

And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.

⁹Then I went to the governors west of the Euphrates and gave them the king’s letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me.

¹⁰But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were deeply disturbed that someone had come to seek the well-being of the Israelites.

Nehemiah Inspects the Walls

¹¹After I had arrived in Jerusalem and had been there three days, ¹²I set out at night with a few men. I did not tell anyone what my God had laid on my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal with me was the one on which I was riding.

¹³So I went out at night through the Valley Gate toward the Well of the Serpent and the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that had been broken down and the gates that had been destroyed by fire.

¹⁴Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was no room for the animal under me to get through; ¹⁵so I went up the valley by night and inspected the wall. Then I headed back and reentered through the Valley Gate.

¹⁶The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews or priests or nobles or officials or any other workers. ¹⁷Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned down. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.”

¹⁸I also told them about the gracious hand of my God upon me, and what the king had said to me.

“Let us start rebuilding,” they replied, and they set their hands to this good work.

¹⁹But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about this, they mocked us and ridiculed us, saying, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”

²⁰So I answered them and said, “The God of heaven is the One who will grant us success. We, His servants, will start rebuilding, but you have no portion, right, or claim in Jerusalem.”