Psalms 138; Psalms 139; Hebrews 3; Hebrews 4

Psalms 138

1 I will praise you, LORD, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise.

2 I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your unfailing love and your faithfulness, for you have so exalted your solemn decree that it surpasses your fame.

3 When I called, you answered me; you greatly emboldened me.

4 May all the kings of the earth praise you, LORD, when they hear what you have decreed.

5 May they sing of the ways of the LORD, for the glory of the LORD is great.

6 Though the LORD is exalted, he looks kindly on the lowly; though lofty, he sees them from afar.

7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life. You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes; with your right hand you save me.

8 The LORD will vindicate me; your love, LORD, endures forever— do not abandon the works of your hands.

Psalms 139

1 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.

5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.

19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!

20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.

21 Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?

22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Hebrews 3

1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.

2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.

3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.

4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.

5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future.

6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.

7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice,

8 do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness,

9 where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did.

10 That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’

11 So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

15 As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.”

16 Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?

17 And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness?

18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed?

19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

Hebrews 4

1 Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.

2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.

3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world.

4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.”

5 And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.”

6 Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience,

7 God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.

9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;

10 for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.