Love and Serve the Lord

1 ^e“You shall therefore love the Lord your God and ^fkeep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. 2 And consider today (since I am not speaking to ^gyour children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline¹ of the Lord your God, ^hhis greatness, ⁱhis mighty hand and his outstretched arm, 3 ^jhis signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, 4 and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, ^khow he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day, 5 and ^lwhat he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, 6 and ^mwhat he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel. 7 For your eyes have seen ⁿall the great work of the Lord that he did.

8 “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may ^obe strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, 9 and ^pthat you may live long in the land ^qthat the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, ^ra land flowing with milk and honey. 10 For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it,² like a garden of vegetables. 11 ^sBut the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 12 a land that the Lord your God cares for. ^tThe eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

13 “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, ^uto love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 ^vhe³ will give the rain for your land in its season, ^wthe early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 ^xAnd he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and ^yyou shall eat and be full. 16 Take care ^zlest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and ^aserve other gods and worship them; 17 then ^bthe anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he ^cwill shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and ^dyou will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

18 ^e“You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and ^fyou shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20 ^gYou shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 ^hthat your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, ⁱas long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 For if ^jyou will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and ^kholding fast to him, 23 then the Lord ^lwill drive out all these nations before you, and you will ^mdispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24 ⁿEvery place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be ^ofrom the wilderness to⁴ the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. 25 ^pNo one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay ^qthe fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, ^ras he promised you.

26 ^s“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 ^tthe blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, 28 and ^uthe curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, ^vto go after other gods that you have not known. 29 And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set ^wthe blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the ^xArabah, opposite Gilgal, beside ^ythe oak⁵ of Moreh? 31 For you are ^zto cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, 32 you shall be careful ^ato do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.

Let Us Sing Songs of Praise

Worship in the Splendor of Holiness

Envoys from Babylon

1 ^sAt that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, ^tsent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered. 2 And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly. And he showed them his treasure house, ^uthe silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses. ^vThere was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them. 3 Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.” 4 He said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: 6 ^wBehold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. 7 ^xAnd some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” 8 Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, ^y“There will be peace and security in my days.”

1 And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and ^qI saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given ^rthe key to the shaft of ^sthe bottomless pit.¹ 2 He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft ^trose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and ^uthe sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. 3 Then from the smoke came ^vlocusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told ^wnot to harm ^xthe grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have ^ythe seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were allowed to torment them ^zfor five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. 6 And in those days ^apeople will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.

7 ^bIn appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: ^con their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were ^dlike human faces, 8 their hair like women’s hair, and ^etheir teeth like lions’ teeth; 9 they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was ^flike the noise of many chariots with ^ghorses rushing into battle. 10 They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people ^hfor five months is in their tails. 11 They have ⁱas king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is ^jAbaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.²

12 ^kThe first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come.

13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from ^lthe four horns of the golden altar before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release ^mthe four angels who are bound at ⁿthe great river Euphrates.” 15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released ^oto kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of ^pmounted troops was ^qtwice ten thousand times ten thousand; ^rI heard their number. 17 And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire³ and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were ^slike lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. 18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.

20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, ^tdid not repent of ^uthe works of their hands nor give up worshiping ^vdemons ^wand idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, 21 nor did they repent of their murders or their ^xsorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.