One Year Bible.

BOOK II

As the Deer Pants for the Water

¹For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.

As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul longs after You, O God.

²My soul thirsts for God, the living God.

When shall I come and appear in God’s presence?

³My tears have been my food

both day and night,

while men ask me all day long,

“Where is your God?”

⁴These things come to mind as I pour out my soul:

how I walked with the multitude,

leading the festive procession to the house of God

with shouts of joy and praise.

⁵Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why the unease within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him

for the salvation of His presence.

⁶O my God, my soul despairs within me.

Therefore I remember You

from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon —

even from Mount Mizar.

⁷Deep calls to deep

in the roar of Your waterfalls;

all Your breakers and waves

have rolled over me.

⁸The LORD decrees His loving devotion by day,

and at night His song is with me

as a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹I say to God my Rock,

“Why have You forgotten me?

Why must I walk in sorrow

because of the enemy’s oppression?”

¹⁰Like the crushing of my bones,

my enemies taunt me,

while they say to me all day long,

“Where is your God?”

¹¹Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why the unease within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him,

my Savior and my God.

The Resurrection of Christ

¹Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. ²By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve. ⁶After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.

⁹For I am the least of the apostles and am unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than all of them — yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

The Resurrection of the Dead

¹²But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is worthless, and so is your faith. ¹⁵In that case, we are also exposed as false witnesses about God. For we have testified about God that He raised Christ from the dead, but He did not raise Him if in fact the dead are not raised.

¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men.

The Order of Resurrection

²⁰But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²²For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ²³But each in his own turn: Christ the firstfruits; then at His coming, those who belong to Him.

²⁴Then the end will come, when He hands over the kingdom to God the Father after He has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power. ²⁵For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. ²⁶The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷For “God has put everything under His feet.” Now when it says that everything has been put under Him, this clearly does not include the One who put everything under Him. ²⁸And when all things have been subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will be made subject to Him who put all things under Him, so that God may be all in all.

²⁹If these things are not so, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? ³⁰And why do we endanger ourselves every hour? ³¹I face death every day, brothers, as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. ³²If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for human motives, what did I gain? If the dead are not raised,

“Let us eat and drink,

for tomorrow we die.”

³³Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.” ³⁴Sober up as you ought, and stop sinning; for some of you are ignorant of God. I say this to your shame.

The Resurrection Body

³⁵But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” ³⁶You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷And what you sow is not the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else. ³⁸But God gives it a body as He has designed, and to each kind of seed He gives its own body.

³⁹Not all flesh is the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another. ⁴⁰There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the splendor of the heavenly bodies is of one degree, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is of another. ⁴¹The sun has one degree of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

⁴²So will it be with the resurrection of the dead: What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable. ⁴³It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

⁴⁶The spiritual, however, was not first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. ⁴⁸As was the earthly man, so also are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so also shall we bear the likeness of the heavenly man.

Where, O Death, Is Your Victory?

⁵⁰Now I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

⁵¹Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — ⁵²in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

⁵⁴When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

⁵⁵“Where, O Death, is your victory?

Where, O Death, is your sting?”

⁵⁶The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

⁵⁸Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and immovable. Always excel in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

The Jews Destroy Their Enemies

¹On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the king’s command and edict were to be executed. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but their plan was overturned and the Jews overpowered those who hated them. ²In each of the provinces of King Xerxes, the Jews assembled in their cities to attack those who sought to harm them. No man could withstand them, because the fear of them had fallen upon all peoples.

³And all the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and the king’s administrators helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai had fallen upon them. ⁴For Mordecai exercised great power in the palace, and his fame spread throughout the provinces as he became more and more powerful.

⁵The Jews put all their enemies to the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did as they pleased to those who hated them. ⁶In the citadel of Susa, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men, ⁷including Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, ⁸Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, ⁹Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vaizatha. ¹⁰They killed these ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but they did not lay a hand on the plunder.

Haman’s Sons Hanged

¹¹On that day the number of those killed in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king, ¹²who said to Queen Esther, “In the citadel of Susa the Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men, including Haman’s ten sons. What have they done in the rest of the royal provinces? Now what is your petition? It will be given to you. And what further do you request? It will be fulfilled.”

¹³Esther replied, “If it pleases the king, may the Jews in Susa also have tomorrow to carry out today’s edict, and may the bodies of Haman’s ten sons be hanged on the gallows.”

¹⁴So the king commanded that this be done. An edict was issued in Susa, and they hanged the ten sons of Haman. ¹⁵On the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, the Jews in Susa came together again and put to death three hundred men there, but they did not lay a hand on the plunder.

¹⁶The rest of the Jews in the royal provinces also assembled to defend themselves and rid themselves of their enemies. They killed 75,000 who hated them, but they did not lay a hand on the plunder. ¹⁷This was done on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested, making it a day of feasting and joy.

The Feast of Purim Instituted

¹⁸The Jews in Susa, however, had assembled on the thirteenth and the fourteenth days of the month. So they rested on the fifteenth day, making it a day of feasting and joy. ¹⁹This is why the rural Jews, who live in the villages, observe the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting. It is a holiday for sending gifts to one another.

²⁰Mordecai recorded these events and sent letters to all the Jews in all the provinces of King Xerxes, both near and far, ²¹to establish among them an annual celebration on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar ²²as the days on which the Jews gained rest from their enemies and the month in which their sorrow turned to joy and their mourning into a holiday. He wrote that these were to be days of feasting and joy, of sending gifts to one another and to the poor.

²³So the Jews agreed to continue the custom they had started, as Mordecai had written to them. ²⁴For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the Pur (that is, the lot) to crush and destroy them. ²⁵But when it came before the king, he commanded by letter that the wicked scheme which Haman had devised against the Jews should come back upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.

²⁶Therefore these days are called Purim, from the word Pur.

Because of all the instructions in this letter, and because of all they had seen and experienced, ²⁷the Jews bound themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should not fail to celebrate these two days at the appointed time each and every year, according to their regulation. ²⁸These days should be remembered and celebrated by every generation, family, province, and city, so that these days of Purim should not fail to be observed among the Jews, nor should the memory of them fade from their descendants.

²⁹So Queen Esther daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter concerning Purim. ³⁰And Mordecai sent letters with words of peace and truth to all the Jews in the 127 provinces of the kingdom of Xerxes, ³¹in order to confirm these days of Purim at their appointed time, just as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had established them and had committed themselves and their descendants to the times of fasting and lamentation.

³²So Esther’s decree confirmed these regulations about Purim, which were written into the record.

Tribute to Xerxes and Mordecai

¹Now King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the land, even to its farthest shores.

²And all of Mordecai’s powerful and magnificent accomplishments, together with the full account of the greatness to which the king had raised him, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia? ³For Mordecai the Jew was second only to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews and highly favored by his many kinsmen, seeking the good of his people and speaking peace to all his countrymen.