Hos. 14

14:1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,

for your sin has been your downfall!

2Return to the Lord and repent!

Say to him: “Completely forgive our iniquity;

accept our penitential prayer,

that we may offer the praise of our lips as sacrificial bulls.

3Assyria cannot save us;

we will not ride warhorses.

We will never again say, ‘Our gods,’

to what our own hands have made.

For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!”

4“I will heal their waywardness

and love them freely,

for my anger will turn away from them.

5I will be like the dew to Israel;

he will blossom like a lily;

he will send down his roots like a cedar of Lebanon.

6His young shoots will grow;

his splendor will be like an olive tree;

his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.

7People will reside again in his shade;

they will plant and harvest grain in abundance.

They will blossom like a vine,

and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

8O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do with idols anymore!

I will answer him and care for him.

I am like a luxuriant cypress tree;

your fruitfulness comes from me!”

9Who is wise?

Let him discern these things!

Who is discerning?

Let him understand them!

For the ways of the Lord are right;

the godly walk in them,

but in them the rebellious stumble.

Ps. 78:36–72

78:36 But they deceived him with their words

and lied to him.

37They were not really committed to him,

and they were unfaithful to his covenant.

38Yet he is compassionate.

He forgives sin and does not destroy.

He often holds back his anger

and does not stir up his fury.

39He remembered that they were made of flesh

and were like a wind that blows past and does not return.

40How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness

and insulted him in the wastelands.

41They again challenged God

and offended the Holy One of Israel.

42They did not remember what he had done,

how he delivered them from the enemy,

43when he performed his awesome deeds in Egypt

and his acts of judgment in the region of Zoan.

44He turned their rivers into blood,

and they could not drink from their streams.

45He sent swarms of biting insects against them,

as well as frogs that overran their land.

46He gave their crops to the grasshopper,

the fruit of their labor to the locust.

47He destroyed their vines with hail

and their sycamore-fig trees with driving rain.

48He rained hail down on their cattle

and hurled lightning bolts down on their livestock.

49His raging anger lashed out against them.

He sent fury, rage, and trouble

as messengers who bring disaster.

50He sent his anger in full force.

He did not spare them from death;

he handed their lives over to destruction.

51He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,

the firstfruits of their reproductive power in the tents of Ham.

52Yet he brought out his people like sheep;

he led them through the wilderness like a flock.

53He guided them safely along, and they were not afraid;

but the sea covered their enemies.

54He brought them to the border of his holy land,

to this mountainous land that his right hand acquired.

55He drove the nations out from before them;

he assigned them their tribal allotments

and allowed the tribes of Israel to settle down.

56Yet they challenged and defied God Most High

and did not obey his commands.

57They were unfaithful and acted as treacherously as their ancestors;

they were as unreliable as a malfunctioning bow.

58They made him angry with their pagan shrines

and made him jealous with their idols.

59God heard and was angry;

he completely rejected Israel.

60He abandoned the sanctuary at Shiloh,

the tent where he lived among men.

61He allowed the symbol of his strong presence to be captured;

he gave the symbol of his splendor into the hand of the enemy.

62He delivered his people over to the sword

and was angry with his chosen nation.

63Fire consumed their young men,

and their virgins remained unmarried.

64Their priests fell by the sword,

but their widows did not weep.

65But then the Lord awoke from his sleep;

he was like a warrior in a drunken rage.

66He drove his enemies back;

he made them a permanent target for insults.

67He rejected the tent of Joseph;

he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.

68He chose the tribe of Judah

and Mount Zion, which he loves.

69He made his sanctuary as enduring as the heavens above,

as secure as the earth, which he established permanently.

70He chose David, his servant,

and took him from the sheepfolds.

71He took him away from following the mother sheep,

and made him the shepherd of Jacob, his people,

and of Israel, his chosen nation.

72David cared for them with pure motives;

he led them with skill.

Rom. 10:5–21

10:5 For Moses writes about the righteousness that is by the law: “The one who does these things will live by them.” 6But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we preach), 9because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation. 11For the scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, who richly blesses all who call on him. 13For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

14How are they to call on one they have not believed in? And how are they to believe in one they have not heard of? And how are they to hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How timely is the arrival of those who proclaim the good news.” 16But not all have obeyed the good news, for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” 17Consequently faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ.

18But I ask, have they not heard? Yes, they have: Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. 19But again I ask, didn’t Israel understand? First Moses says, “I will make you jealous by those who are not a nation; with a senseless nation I will provoke you to anger.” 20And Isaiah is even bold enough to say, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I became well known to those who did not ask for me.” 21But about Israel he says, “All day long I held out my hands to this disobedient and stubborn people!”