DEUTERONOMY 28:1-68
LUKE 11:14-36
PSALM 77:1-20
PROVERBS 12:18
DEUTERONOMY 28:1-68
" If you fully obey the LORD your God by keeping all the commands I am giving you today, the LORD your God will exalt you above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the LORD your God: 3 You will be blessed in your towns and in the country. 4 You will be blessed with many children and productive fields. You will be blessed with fertile herds and flocks. 5 You will be blessed with baskets overflowing with fruit, and with kneading bowls filled with bread. 6 You will be blessed wherever you go, both in coming and in going. 7 " The LORD will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven! 8 " The LORD will bless everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. 9 " If you obey the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways, the LORD will establish you as his holy people as he solemnly promised to do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you.11 " The LORD will give you an abundance of good things in the land he swore to give your ancestors--many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. 12 The LORD will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens to bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13 If you listen to these commands of the LORD your God and carefully obey them, the LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always have the upper hand. 14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today to follow after other gods and worship them. 15 " But if you refuse to listen to the LORD your God and do not obey all the commands and laws I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:16 You will be cursed in your towns and in the country. 17 You will be cursed with baskets empty of fruit, and with kneading bowls empty of bread. 18 You will be cursed with few children and barren fields. You will be cursed with infertile herds and flocks. 19 You will be cursed wherever you go, both in coming and in going. 20 " The LORD himself will send against you curses, confusion, and disillusionment in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and forsaking me. 21 The LORD will send diseases among you until none of you are left in the land you are about to enter and occupy. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, fever, and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew. These devastations will pursue you until you die. 23 The skies above will be as unyielding as bronze, and the earth beneath will be as hard as iron. 24 The LORD will turn your rain into sand and dust, and it will pour down from the sky until you are destroyed. 25 " The LORD will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You will attack your enemies from one direction, but you will scatter from them in seven! You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your dead bodies will be food for the birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away. 27 " The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, scurvy, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The LORD will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. 29 You will grope around in broad daylight, just like a blind person groping in the darkness, and you will not succeed at anything you do. You will be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will come to save you. 30 " You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will ravish her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you won't get a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be driven away, never to be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you. 32 You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break as you long for them, but nothing you do will help. 33 A foreign nation you have never heard about will eat the crops you worked so hard to grow. You will suffer under constant oppression and harsh treatment. 34 You will go mad because of all the tragedy around you. 35 The LORD will cover you from head to foot with incurable boils. 36 " The LORD will exile you and the king you crowned to a nation unknown to you and your ancestors. Then in exile you will worship gods of wood and stone! 37 You will become an object of horror, a proverb and a mockery among all the nations to which the LORD sends you. 38 " You will plant much but harvest little, for locusts will eat your crops. 39 You will plant vineyards and care for them, but you will not drink the wine or eat the grapes, for worms will destroy the vines. 40 You will grow olive trees throughout your land, but you will never use the olive oil, for the trees will drop the fruit before it is ripe. 41 You will have sons and daughters, but you will not keep them, for they will be led away into captivity. 42 Swarms of insects will destroy your trees and crops. 43 The foreigners living among you will become stronger and stronger, while you become weaker and weaker. 44 They will lend money to you, not you to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail! 45 " If you refuse to listen to the LORD your God and to obey the commands and laws he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. 46 These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever. 47 Because you have not served the LORD your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, 48 you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. They will oppress you harshly until you are destroyed. 49 " The LORD will bring a distant nation against you from the end of the earth, and it will swoop down on you like an eagle. It is a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young. 51 Its armies will devour your livestock and crops, and you will starve to death. They will leave you no grain, new wine, olive oil, calves, or lambs, bringing about your destruction. 52 They will lay siege to your cities until all the fortified walls in your land--the walls you trusted to protect you--are knocked down. They will attack all the towns in the land the LORD your God has given you. 53 The siege will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you. 54 The most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children. 55 He will refuse to give them a share of the flesh he is devouring--the flesh of one of his own children--because he has nothing else to eat during the siege that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. 56 The most tender and delicate woman among you--so delicate she would not so much as touch her feet to the ground--will be cruel to the husband she loves and to her own son or daughter. 57 She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns. 58 " If you refuse to obey all the terms of this law that are written in this book, and if you do not fear the glorious and awesome name of the LORD your God, 59 then the LORD will overwhelm both you and your children with indescribable plagues. These plagues will be intense and without relief, making you miserable and unbearably sick. 60 He will bring against you all the diseases of Egypt that you feared so much, and they will claim you. 61 The LORD will bring against you every sickness and plague there is, even those not mentioned in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. 62 Though you are as numerous as the stars in the sky, few of you will be left because you would not listen to the LORD your God. 63 " Just as the LORD has found great pleasure in helping you to prosper and multiply, the LORD will find pleasure in destroying you, until you disappear from the land you are about to enter and occupy. 64 For the LORD will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone! 65 There among those nations you will find no place of security and rest. And the LORD will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. 66 Your lives will hang in doubt. You will live night and day in fear, with no reason to believe that you will see the morning light. 67 In the morning you will say, ` If only it were night!' And in the evening you will say, ` If only it were morning!' You will say this because of your terror at the awesome horrors you see around you. 68 Then the LORD will send you back to Egypt in ships, a journey I promised you would never again make. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will want to buy you."
LUKE 11:14-36
One day Jesus cast a demon out of a man who couldn't speak, and the man's voice returned to him. The crowd was amazed, 15 but some said, " No wonder he can cast out demons. He gets his power from Satan, the prince of demons!" 16 Trying to test Jesus, others asked for a miraculous sign from heaven to see if he was from God. 17 He knew their thoughts, so he said, " Any kingdom at war with itself is doomed. A divided home is also doomed. 18 You say I am empowered by the prince of demons. But if Satan is fighting against himself by empowering me to cast out his demons, how can his kingdom survive? 19 And if I am empowered by the prince of demons, what about your own followers? They cast out demons, too, so they will judge you for what you have said. 20 But if I am casting out demons by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you. 21 For when Satan, who is completely armed, guards his palace, it is safe--22 until someone who is stronger attacks and overpowers him, strips him of his weapons, and carries off his belongings. 23 " Anyone who isn't helping me opposes me, and anyone who isn't working with me is actually working against me.24 " When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, searching for rest. But when it finds none, it says, ` I will return to the person I came from.' 25 So it returns and finds that its former home is all swept and clean. 26 Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before." 27 As he was speaking, a woman in the crowd called out, " God bless your mother--the womb from which you came, and the breasts that nursed you!" 28 He replied, " But even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice." 29 As the crowd pressed in on Jesus, he said, " These are evil times, and this evil generation keeps asking me to show them a miraculous sign. But the only sign I will give them is the sign of the prophet Jonah. 30 What happened to him was a sign to the people of Nineveh that God had sent him. What happens to me will be a sign that God has sent me, the Son of Man, to these people.31 " The queen of Sheba will rise up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, because she came from a distant land to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And now someone greater than Solomon is here--and you refuse to listen to him. 32 The people of Nineveh, too, will rise up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And now someone greater than Jonah is here--and you refuse to repent. 33 " No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a basket. Instead, it is put on a lampstand to give light to all who enter the room. 34 Your eye is a lamp for your body. A pure eye lets sunshine into your soul. But an evil eye shuts out the light and plunges you into darkness. 35 Make sure that the light you think you have is not really darkness. 36 If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight is shining on you."
PSALM 77:1-20
For Jeduthun, the choir director: A psalm of Asaph.
1 I cry out to God without holding back.
Oh, that God would listen to me!
2 When I was in deep trouble,
I searched for the Lord.
All night long I pray, with hands lifted toward heaven, pleading.
There can be no joy for me until he acts.
3 I think of God, and I moan,
overwhelmed with longing for his help.
Interlude4 You don't let me sleep.
I am too distressed even to pray!
5 I think of the good old days, long since ended,
6 when my nights were filled with joyful songs.
I search my soul and think about the difference now.
7 Has the Lord rejected me forever?
Will he never again show me favor?
8 Is his unfailing love gone forever?
Have his promises permanently failed?
9 Has God forgotten to be kind?
Has he slammed the door on his compassion?
Interlude10 And I said, " This is my fate,
that the blessings of the Most High have changed to hatred."
11 I recall all you have done, O LORD;
I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.
12 They are constantly in my thoughts.
I cannot stop thinking about them.
13 O God, your ways are holy.
Is there any god as mighty as you?
14 You are the God of miracles and wonders!
You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.
15 You have redeemed your people by your strength,
the descendants of Jacob and of Joseph by your might.
Interlude16 When the Red Sea saw you, O God,
its waters looked and trembled!
The sea quaked to its very depths.
17 The clouds poured down their rain;
the thunder rolled and crackled in the sky.
Your arrows of lightning flashed.
18 Your thunder roared from the whirlwind;
the lightning lit up the world!
The earth trembled and shook.
19 Your road led through the sea,
your pathway through the mighty waters--
a pathway no one knew was there!
20 You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep,
with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.
PROVERBS 12:18
Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing.
