2 Samuel 7

• 1. After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him,
• 2. he said to Nathan the prophet, "Here I am, living in a palace of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent."
• 3. Nathan replied to the king, "Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you."
• 4. That night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, saying:
• 5. "Go and tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in?
• 6. I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling.
• 7. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?"'
• 8. "Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel.
• 9. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth.
• 10. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning
• 11. and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies. "'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you:
• 12. When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom.
• 13. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
• 14. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.
• 15. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.
• 16. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.'"
• 17. Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.
• 18. Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said: "Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?
• 19. And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign LORD, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign LORD?
• 20. "What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Sovereign LORD.
• 21. For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant.
• 22. "How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.
• 23. And who is like your people Israel-the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt?
• 24. You have established your people Israel as your very own forever, and you, O LORD, have become their God.
• 25. "And now, LORD God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised,
• 26. so that your name will be great forever. Then men will say, 'The LORD Almighty is God over Israel!' And the house of your servant David will be established before you.
• 27. "O LORD Almighty, God of Israel, you have revealed this to your servant, saying, 'I will build a house for you.' So your servant has found courage to offer you this prayer.
• 28. O Sovereign LORD, you are God! Your words are trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant.
• 29. Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, O Sovereign LORD, have spoken, and with your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever."

2 Corinthians 1

• 1. Paul, 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:
• 2. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
• 3. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
• 4. who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
• 5. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.
• 6. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
• 7. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
• 8. We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.
• 9. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
• 10. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,
• 11. as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
• 12. Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God's grace.
• 13. For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that,
• 14. as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
• 15. Because I was confident of this, I planned to visit you first so that you might benefit twice.
• 16. I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia, and then to have you send me on my way to Judea.
• 17. When I planned this, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath I say, "Yes, yes" and "No, no"?
• 18. But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not "Yes" and "No."
• 19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not "Yes" and "No," but in him it has always been "Yes."
• 20. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God.
• 21. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us,
• 22. set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
• 23. I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.
• 24. Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm.

Ezekiel 15

• 1. The word of the LORD came to me:
• 2. "Son of man, how is the wood of a vine better than that of a branch on any of the trees in the forest?
• 3. Is wood ever taken from it to make anything useful? Do they make pegs from it to hang things on?
• 4. And after it is thrown on the fire as fuel and the fire burns both ends and chars the middle, is it then useful for anything?
• 5. If it was not useful for anything when it was whole, how much less can it be made into something useful when the fire has burned it and it is charred?
• 6. "Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: As I have given the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest as fuel for the fire, so will I treat the people living in Jerusalem.
• 7. I will set my face against them. Although they have come out of the fire, the fire will yet consume them. And when I set my face against them, you will know that I am the LORD.
• 8. I will make the land desolate because they have been unfaithful, declares the Sovereign LORD."

New International Version

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