One Year Bible.

I Will Watch My Ways

¹For the choirmaster. For Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.

I said, “I will watch my ways

so that I will not sin with my tongue;

I will guard my mouth with a muzzle

as long as the wicked are present.”

²I was speechless and still;

I remained silent, even from speaking good,

and my sorrow was stirred.

³My heart grew hot within me;

as I mused, the fire burned.

Then I spoke with my tongue:

⁴“Show me, O LORD, my end

and the measure of my days.

Let me know how fleeting my life is.

⁵You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths,

and my lifetime as nothing before You.

Truly each man at his best

exists as but a breath.

Selah

⁶Surely every man goes about like a phantom;

surely he bustles in vain;

he heaps up riches

not knowing who will haul them away.

⁷And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?

My hope is in You.

⁸Deliver me from all my transgressions;

do not make me the reproach of fools.

⁹I have become mute;

I do not open my mouth

because of what You have done.

¹⁰Remove Your scourge from me;

I am perishing by the force of Your hand.

¹¹You discipline and correct a man for his iniquity,

consuming like a moth what he holds dear;

surely each man is but a vapor.

Selah

¹²Hear my prayer, O LORD,

and give ear to my cry for help;

do not be deaf to my weeping.

For I am a foreigner dwelling with You,

a stranger like all my fathers.

¹³Turn Your gaze away from me,

that I may again be cheered

before I depart and am no more.”

I Waited Patiently for the LORD

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

I waited patiently for the LORD;

He inclined to me and heard my cry.

²He lifted me up from the pit of despair,

out of the miry clay;

He set my feet upon a rock,

and made my footsteps firm.

³He put a new song in my mouth,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear

and put their trust in the LORD.

⁴Blessed is the man

who has made the LORD his trust,

who has not turned to the proud,

nor to those who lapse into falsehood.

⁵Many, O LORD my God,

are the wonders You have done,

and the plans You have for us —

none can compare to You —

if I proclaim and declare them,

they are more than I can count.

⁶Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,

but my ears You have opened.

Burnt offerings and sin offerings

You did not require.

⁷Then I said, “Here I am, I have come —

it is written about me in the scroll:

⁸I delight to do Your will, O my God;

Your law is within my heart.”

⁹I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly;

behold, I do not seal my lips,

as You, O LORD, do know.

¹⁰I have not covered up Your righteousness in my heart;

I have declared Your faithfulness and salvation;

I have not concealed Your loving devotion and faithfulness

from the great assembly.

¹¹O LORD, do not withhold Your mercy from me;

Your loving devotion and faithfulness will always guard me.

¹²For evils without number surround me;

my sins have overtaken me, so that I cannot see.

They are more than the hairs of my head,

and my heart has failed within me.

¹³Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me;

hurry, O LORD, to help me.

¹⁴May those who seek my life

be ashamed and confounded;

may those who wish me harm

be repelled and humiliated.

¹⁵May those who say to me, “Aha, aha!”

be appalled at their own shame.

¹⁶May all who seek You

rejoice and be glad in You;

may those who love Your salvation

always say, “The LORD be magnified!”

¹⁷But I am poor and needy;

may the Lord think of me.

You are my helper and deliverer;

O my God, do not delay.

Victory over Betrayal

¹For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

Blessed is the one who cares for the poor;

the LORD will deliver him in the day of trouble.

²The LORD will protect and preserve him;

He will bless him in the land

and refuse to give him over

to the will of his foes.

³The LORD will sustain him on his bed of illness

and restore him from his bed of sickness.

⁴I said, “O LORD, be gracious to me;

heal me, for I have sinned against You.”

⁵My enemies say with malice:

“When will he die and be forgotten?”

⁶My visitor speaks falsehood;

he gathers slander in his heart;

he goes out and spreads it abroad.

⁷All who hate me whisper against me;

they imagine the worst for me:

⁸“A vile disease has been poured into him;

he will never get up from where he lies!”

⁹Even my close friend whom I trusted,

the one who shared my bread,

has lifted up his heel against me.

¹⁰But You, O LORD, be gracious to me and raise me up,

that I may repay them.

¹¹By this I know that You delight in me,

for my enemy does not triumph over me.

¹²In my integrity You uphold me

and set me in Your presence forever.

¹³Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel,

from everlasting to everlasting.

Amen and Amen.

Love

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. ⁶Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.

¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. ¹²Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

Xerxes’ Royal Feast

¹This is what happened in the days of Xerxes, who reigned over 127 provinces from India to Cush. ²In those days King Xerxes sat on his royal throne in the citadel of Susa.

³In the third year of his reign, Xerxes held a feast for all his officials and servants. The military leaders of Persia and Media were there, along with the nobles and princes of the provinces. ⁴And for a full 180 days he displayed the glorious riches of his kingdom and the magnificent splendor of his greatness.

⁵At the end of this time, in the garden court of the royal palace, the king held a seven-day feast for all the people in the citadel of Susa, from the least to the greatest. ⁶Hangings of white and blue linen were fastened with cords of fine white and purple material to silver rings on the marble pillars. Gold and silver couches were arranged on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and other costly stones.

⁷Beverages were served in an array of goblets of gold, each with a different design, and the royal wine flowed freely, according to the king’s bounty. ⁸By order of the king, no limit was placed on the drinking, and every official of his household was to serve each man whatever he desired.

Queen Vashti’s Refusal

⁹Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the royal palace of King Xerxes.

¹⁰On the seventh day, when the king’s heart was merry with wine, he ordered the seven eunuchs who served him — Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carkas — ¹¹to bring Queen Vashti before him, wearing her royal crown, to display her beauty to the people and officials. For she was beautiful to behold.

¹²Queen Vashti, however, refused to come at the king’s command brought by his eunuchs. And the king became furious, and his anger burned within him.

Queen Vashti Deposed

¹³Then the king consulted the wise men who knew the times, for it was customary for him to confer with the experts in law and justice. ¹⁴His closest advisors were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media who had personal access to the king and ranked highest in the kingdom.

¹⁵“According to law,” he asked, “what should be done with Queen Vashti, since she refused to obey the command of King Xerxes delivered by the eunuchs?”

¹⁶And in the presence of the king and his princes, Memucan replied, “Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king, but all the princes and the peoples in all the provinces of King Xerxes. ¹⁷For the conduct of the queen will become known to all women, causing them to despise their husbands and say, ‘King Xerxes ordered Queen Vashti to be brought before him, but she did not come.’

¹⁸This very day the noble women of Persia and Media who have heard about the queen’s conduct will say the same thing to all the king’s officials, resulting in much contempt and wrath.

¹⁹So if it pleases the king, let him issue a royal decree, and let it be recorded in the laws of Persia and Media so that it cannot be repealed, that Vashti shall never again enter the presence of King Xerxes, and that her royal position shall be given to a woman better than she. ²⁰The edict the king issues will be heard throughout his vast kingdom — and so all women, from the least to the greatest, will honor their husbands.”

²¹The king and his princes were pleased with this counsel; so the king did as Memucan advised. ²²He sent letters to all the provinces of the kingdom, to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, proclaiming that every man should be master of his own household.

Seeking Vashti’s Successor

¹Some time later, when the anger of King Xerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done, and what had been decreed against her.

²Then the king’s attendants proposed, “Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king, ³and let the king appoint commissioners in each province of his kingdom to assemble all the beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch in charge of the women, and let them be given beauty treatments. ⁴Then let the young woman who pleases the king become queen in place of Vashti.”

This suggestion pleased the king, and he acted accordingly.

Esther Finds Favor

⁵Now there was at the citadel of Susa a Jewish man from the tribe of Benjamin named Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish. ⁶He had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon among those taken captive with Jeconiah king of Judah.

⁷And Mordecai had brought up Hadassah (that is, Esther), the daughter of his uncle, because she did not have a father or mother. The young woman was lovely in form and appearance, and when her father and mother had died, Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter.

⁸When the king’s command and edict had been proclaimed, many young women gathered at the citadel of Susa under the care of Hegai. Esther was also taken to the palace and placed under the care of Hegai, the custodian of the women. ⁹And the young woman pleased him and obtained his favor, so he quickly provided her with beauty treatments and the special diet. He assigned to her seven select maidservants from the palace and transferred her with them to the best place in the harem.

¹⁰Esther did not reveal her people or her lineage, because Mordecai had instructed her not to do so. ¹¹And every day Mordecai would walk back and forth in front of the court of the harem to learn about Esther’s welfare and what was happening to her.

¹²In the twelve months before her turn to go to King Xerxes, the harem regulation required each young woman to receive beauty treatments with oil of myrrh for six months, and then with perfumes and cosmetics for another six months. ¹³When the young woman would go to the king, she was given whatever she requested to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. ¹⁴She would go there in the evening, and in the morning she would return to a second harem under the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he delighted in her and summoned her by name.

¹⁵Now Esther was the daughter of Abihail, the uncle from whom Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter. And when it was her turn to go to the king, she did not ask for anything except what Hegai, the king’s trusted official in charge of the harem, had advised. And Esther found favor in the eyes of everyone who saw her.

¹⁶She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal palace in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

Esther Becomes Queen

¹⁷And the king loved Esther more than all the other women, and she found grace and favor in his sight more than all of the other virgins. So he placed the royal crown upon her head and made her queen in place of Vashti.

¹⁸Then the king held a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his officials and servants. He proclaimed a tax holiday in the provinces and gave gifts worthy of the king’s bounty.

¹⁹When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate. ²⁰Esther still had not revealed her lineage or her people, just as Mordecai had instructed. She obeyed Mordecai’s command, as she had done under his care.

Mordecai Uncovers a Conspiracy

²¹In those days, while Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the entrance, grew angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.

²²When Mordecai learned of the plot, he reported it to Queen Esther, and she informed the king on Mordecai’s behalf.

²³After the report had been investigated and verified, both officials were hanged on the gallows. And all this was recorded in the Book of the Chronicles in the presence of the king.