August 30: Job 29–30; 2 Thessalonians 1; Psalm 56; Proverbs 22:15

Job 29–30 (Listen)

Job’s Summary Defense

29 And Job again took up his discourse, and said:

2   “Oh, that I were as in the months of old,
    as in the days when God watched over me,
3   when his lamp shone upon my head,
    and by his light I walked through darkness,
4   as I was in my prime,¹
    when the friendship of God was upon my tent,
5   when the Almighty was yet with me,
    when my children were all around me,
6   when my steps were washed with butter,
    and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!
7   When I went out to the gate of the city,
    when I prepared my seat in the square,
8   the young men saw me and withdrew,
    and the aged rose and stood;
9   the princes refrained from talking
    and laid their hand on their mouth;
10   the voice of the nobles was hushed,
    and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.
11   When the ear heard, it called me blessed,
    and when the eye saw, it approved,
12   because I delivered the poor who cried for help,
    and the fatherless who had none to help him.
13   The blessing of him who was about to perish came upon me,
    and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
14   I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;
    my justice was like a robe and a turban.
15   I was eyes to the blind
    and feet to the lame.
16   I was a father to the needy,
    and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know.
17   I broke the fangs of the unrighteous
    and made him drop his prey from his teeth.
18   Then I thought, ‘I shall die in my nest,
    and I shall multiply my days as the sand,
19   my roots spread out to the waters,
    with the dew all night on my branches,
20   my glory fresh with me,
    and my bow ever new in my hand.’
21   “Men listened to me and waited
    and kept silence for my counsel.
22   After I spoke they did not speak again,
    and my word dropped upon them.
23   They waited for me as for the rain,
    and they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.
24   I smiled on them when they had no confidence,
    and the light of my face they did not cast down.
25   I chose their way and sat as chief,
    and I lived like a king among his troops,
    like one who comforts mourners.
30   “But now they laugh at me,
    men who are younger than I,
  whose fathers I would have disdained
    to set with the dogs of my flock.
2   What could I gain from the strength of their hands,
    men whose vigor is gone?
3   Through want and hard hunger
    they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;
4   they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes,
    and the roots of the broom tree for their food.²
5   They are driven out from human company;
    they shout after them as after a thief.
6   In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell,
    in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
7   Among the bushes they bray;
    under the nettles they huddle together.
8   A senseless, a nameless brood,
    they have been whipped out of the land.
9   “And now I have become their song;
    I am a byword to them.
10   They abhor me; they keep aloof from me;
    they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.
11   Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,
    they have cast off restraint³ in my presence.
12   On my right hand the rabble rise;
    they push away my feet;
    they cast up against me their ways of destruction.
13   They break up my path;
    they promote my calamity;
    they need no one to help them.
14   As through a wide breach they come;
    amid the crash they roll on.
15   Terrors are turned upon me;
    my honor is pursued as by the wind,
    and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.
16   “And now my soul is poured out within me;
    days of affliction have taken hold of me.
17   The night racks my bones,
    and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
18   With great force my garment is disfigured;
    it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
19   God⁴ has cast me into the mire,
    and I have become like dust and ashes.
20   I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
    I stand, and you only look at me.
21   You have turned cruel to me;
    with the might of your hand you persecute me.
22   You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it,
    and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
23   For I know that you will bring me to death
    and to the house appointed for all living.
24   “Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand,
    and in his disaster cry for help?⁵
25   Did not I weep for him whose day was hard?
    Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
26   But when I hoped for good, evil came,
    and when I waited for light, darkness came.
27   My inward parts are in turmoil and never still;
    days of affliction come to meet me.
28   I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
    I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
29   I am a brother of jackals
    and a companion of ostriches.
30   My skin turns black and falls from me,
    and my bones burn with heat.
31   My lyre is turned to mourning,
    and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.

(ESV)

2 Thessalonians 1 (Listen)

Greeting

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving

3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers,¹ as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

The Judgment at Christ’s Coming

5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from² the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. 11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

(ESV)

Psalm 56 (Listen)

In God I Trust

To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths. A Miktam¹ of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

56   Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;
    all day long an attacker oppresses me;
2   my enemies trample on me all day long,
    for many attack me proudly.
3   When I am afraid,
    I put my trust in you.
4   In God, whose word I praise,
    in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
    What can flesh do to me?
5   All day long they injure my cause;²
    all their thoughts are against me for evil.
6   They stir up strife, they lurk;
    they watch my steps,
    as they have waited for my life.
7   For their crime will they escape?
    In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!
8   You have kept count of my tossings;³
    put my tears in your bottle.
    Are they not in your book?
9   Then my enemies will turn back
    in the day when I call.
    This I know, that⁴ God is for me.
10   In God, whose word I praise,
    in the LORD, whose word I praise,
11   in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
    What can man do to me?
12   I must perform my vows to you, O God;
    I will render thank offerings to you.
13   For you have delivered my soul from death,
    yes, my feet from falling,
  that I may walk before God
    in the light of life.

(ESV)

Proverbs 22:15 (Listen)

15   Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,
    but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

(ESV)