Jer. 49:7–22

49:7 The Lord of Heaven’s Armies spoke about Edom:

“Is wisdom no longer to be found in Teman?

Can Edom’s counselors not give her any good advice?

Has all their wisdom turned bad?

8Turn and flee! Take up refuge in remote places,

you people who live in Dedan.

For I will bring disaster on the descendants of Esau.

I have decided it is time for me to punish them.

9If grape pickers came to pick your grapes,

would they not leave a few grapes behind?

If robbers came at night,

would they not pillage only what they needed?

10But I will strip everything away from Esau’s descendants.

I will uncover their hiding places so they cannot hide.

Their children, relatives, and neighbors will all be destroyed.

Not one of them will be left!

11Leave your orphans behind, and I will keep them alive.

Your widows, too, can depend on me.”

12For the Lord says, “If even those who did not deserve to drink from the cup of my wrath must drink from it, do you think you will go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, but must certainly drink from the cup of my wrath. 13For I solemnly swear,” says the Lord, “that Bozrah will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

14I said, “I have heard a message from the Lord.

A messenger has been sent among the nations to say,

‘Gather your armies and march out against her!

Prepare to do battle with her!’”

15The Lord says to Edom,

“I will certainly make you small among nations.

I will make you despised by all humankind.

16The terror you inspire in others

and the arrogance of your heart have deceived you.

You may make your home in the clefts of the rocks;

you may occupy the highest places in the hills.

But even if you made your home where the eagles nest,

I would bring you down from there,”

says the Lord.

17“Edom will become an object of horror.

All who pass by it will be filled with horror;

they will hiss out their scorn

because of all the disasters that have happened to it.

18Edom will be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah

and the towns that were around them.

No one will live there.

No human being will settle in it,”

says the Lord.

19“A lion coming up from the thick undergrowth along the Jordan

scatters the sheep in the pastureland around it.

So too I will chase the Edomites off their land.

Then I will appoint over it whomever I choose.

For there is no one like me, and there is no one who can call me to account.

There is no ruler who can stand up against me.

20So listen to what I, the Lord, have planned against Edom,

what I intend to do to the people who live in Teman.

Their little ones will be dragged off.

I will completely destroy their land because of what they have done.

21The people of the earth will quake when they hear of their downfall.

Their cries of anguish will be heard all the way to the Gulf of Aqaba.

22Look! Like an eagle with outspread wings,

a nation will soar up and swoop down on Bozrah.

At that time the soldiers of Edom will be as fearful

as a woman in labor.”

Ps. 33

33:1 You godly ones, shout for joy because of the Lord!

It is appropriate for the morally upright to offer him praise.

2Give thanks to the Lord with the harp.

Sing to him to the accompaniment of a ten-stringed instrument.

3Sing to him a new song.

Play skillfully as you shout out your praises to him.

4For the Lord’s decrees are just,

and everything he does is fair.

5He promotes equity and justice;

the Lord’s faithfulness extends throughout the earth.

6By the Lord’s decree the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all the starry hosts.

7He piles up the water of the sea;

he puts the oceans in storehouses.

8Let the whole earth fear the Lord.

Let all who live in the world stand in awe of him.

9For he spoke, and it came into existence.

He issued the decree, and it stood firm.

10The Lord frustrates the decisions of the nations;

he nullifies the plans of the peoples.

11The Lord’s decisions stand forever;

his plans abide throughout the ages.

12How blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,

the people whom he has chosen to be his special possession.

13The Lord watches from heaven;

he sees all people.

14From the place where he lives he looks carefully

at all the earth’s inhabitants.

15He is the one who forms every human heart,

and takes note of all their actions.

16No king is delivered by his vast army;

a warrior is not saved by his great might.

17A horse disappoints those who trust in it for victory;

despite its great strength, it cannot deliver.

18Look, the Lord takes notice of his loyal followers,

those who wait for him to demonstrate his faithfulness

19by saving their lives from death

and sustaining them during times of famine.

20We wait for the Lord;

he is our deliverer and shield.

21For our hearts rejoice in him,

for we trust in his holy name.

22May we experience your faithfulness, O Lord,

for we wait for you.

Eph. 1:15–2:10

1:15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers. 17I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, will give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him, 18—since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened—so that you can know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength. 20This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms 21far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And God put all things under Christ’s feet, and gave him to the church as head over all things. 23Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

2:1 And although you were dead in your offenses and sins, 2in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the domain of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, 3among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest…

4But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, 5even though we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you are saved!— 6and he raised us up together with him and seated us together with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9it is not from works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are his creative work, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we can do them.