April 13: Psalm 55; Psalm 74; Lamentations 2:1–9; Lamentations 2:14–17; 2 Corinthians 1:23–2:11; Mark 12:1–11 - a podcast by Crossway

Psalm 55(Listen)

Cast Your Burden on theLord

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil¹of David.

55   Give ear to my prayer, O God,
    and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!
2   Attend to me, and answer me;
    I am restless in my complaint and I moan,
3   because of the noise of the enemy,
    because of the oppression of the wicked.
  For they drop trouble upon me,
    and in anger they bear a grudge against me.
4   My heart is in anguish within me;
    the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
5   Fear and trembling come upon me,
    and horror overwhelms me.
6   And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
    I would fly away and be at rest;
7   yes, I would wander far away;
    I would lodge in the wilderness;Selah
8   I would hurry to find a shelter
    from the raging wind and tempest.”
9   Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues;
    for I see violence and strife in the city.
10   Day and night they go around it
    on its walls,
  and iniquity and trouble are within it;
11     ruin is in its midst;
  oppression and fraud
    do not depart from its marketplace.
12   For it is not an enemy who taunts me—
    then I could bear it;
  it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—
    then I could hide from him.
13   But it is you, a man, my equal,
    my companion, my familiar friend.
14   We used to take sweet counsel together;
    within God’s house we walked in the throng.
15   Let death steal over them;
    let them go down to Sheol alive;
    for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.
16   But I call to God,
    and the LORD will save me.
17   Evening and morning and at noon
    I utter my complaint and moan,
    and he hears my voice.
18   He redeems my soul in safety
    from the battle that I wage,
    for many are arrayed against me.
19   God will give ear and humble them,
    he who is enthroned from of old,Selah
  because they do not change
    and do not fear God.
20   My companion²stretched out his hand against his friends;
    he violated his covenant.
21   His speech was smooth as butter,
    yet war was in his heart;
  his words were softer than oil,
    yet they were drawn swords.
22   Cast your burden on the LORD,
    and he will sustain you;
  he will never permit
    the righteous to be moved.
23   But you, O God, will cast them down
    into the pit of destruction;
  men of blood and treachery
    shall not live out half their days.
  But I will trust in you.

(ESV)

Psalm 74(Listen)

Arise, O God, Defend Your Cause

A Maskil¹of Asaph.

74   O God, why do you cast us off forever?
    Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
2   Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old,
    which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!
    Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.
3   Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
    the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!
4   Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place;
    they set up their own signs for signs.
5   They were like those who swing axes
    in a forest of trees.²
6   And all its carved wood
    they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
7   They set your sanctuary on fire;
    they profaned the dwelling place of your name,
    bringing it down to the ground.
8   They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
    they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
9   We do not see our signs;
    there is no longer any prophet,
    and there is none among us who knows how long.
10   How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
    Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11   Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
    Take it from the fold of your garment³and destroy them!
12   Yet God my King is from of old,
    working salvation in the midst of the earth.
13   You divided the sea by your might;
    you broke the heads of the sea monsters⁴on the waters.
14   You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
    you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
15   You split open springs and brooks;
    you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16   Yours is the day, yours also the night;
    you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
17   You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
    you have made summer and winter.
18   Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs,
    and a foolish people reviles your name.
19   Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts;
    do not forget the life of your poor forever.
20   Have regard for the covenant,
    for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
21   Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame;
    let the poor and needy praise your name.
22   Arise, O God, defend your cause;
    remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!
23   Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
    the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!

(ESV)

Lamentations 2:1–9(Listen)

The Lord Has Destroyed Without Pity

2   How the Lord in his anger
    has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!
  He has cast down from heaven to earth
    the splendor of Israel;
  he has not remembered his footstool
    in the day of his anger.
2   The Lord has swallowed up without mercy
    all the habitations of Jacob;
  in his wrath he has broken down
    the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
  he has brought down to the ground in dishonor
    the kingdom and its rulers.
3   He has cut down in fierce anger
    all the might of Israel;
  he has withdrawn from them his right hand
    in the face of the enemy;
  he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
    consuming all around.
4   He has bent his bow like an enemy,
    with his right hand set like a foe;
  and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes
    in the tent of the daughter of Zion;
  he has poured out his fury like fire.
5   The Lord has become like an enemy;
    he has swallowed up Israel;
  he has swallowed up all its palaces;
    he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
  and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
    mourning and lamentation.
6   He has laid waste his booth like a garden,
    laid in ruins his meeting place;
  the LORD has made Zion forget
    festival and Sabbath,
  and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.
7   The Lord has scorned his altar,
    disowned his sanctuary;
  he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
    the walls of her palaces;
  they raised a clamor in the house of the LORD
    as on the day of festival.
8   The LORD determined to lay in ruins
    the wall of the daughter of Zion;
  he stretched out the measuring line;
    he did not restrain his hand from destroying;
  he caused rampart and wall to lament;
    they languished together.
9   Her gates have sunk into the ground;
    he has ruined and broken her bars;
  her king and princes are among the nations;
    the law is no more,
  and her prophets find
    no vision from the LORD.

(ESV)

Lamentations 2:14–17(Listen)

14   Your prophets have seen for you
    false and deceptive visions;
  they have not exposed your iniquity
    to restore your fortunes,
  but have seen for you oracles
    that are false and misleading.
15   All who pass along the way
    clap their hands at you;
  they hiss and wag their heads
    at the daughter of Jerusalem:
  “Is this the city that was called
    the perfection of beauty,
    the joy of all the earth?”
16   All your enemies
    rail against you;
  they hiss, they gnash their teeth,
    they cry: “We have swallowed her!
  Ah, this is the day we longed for;
    now we have it; we see it!”
17   The LORD has done what he purposed;
    he has carried out his word,
  which he commanded long ago;
    he has thrown down without pity;
  he has made the enemy rejoice over you
    and exalted the might of your foes.

(ESV)

2 Corinthians 1:23–2:11(Listen)

23 But I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth.24 Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.

2 For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you.2 For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained?3 And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all.4 For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

Forgive the Sinner

5 Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you.6 For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough,7 so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.8 So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.9 For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.10 Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ,11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

(ESV)

Mark 12:1–11(Listen)

The Parable of the Tenants

12 And he began to speak to them in parables.“A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country.2 When the season came, he sent a servant¹to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully.5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.10 Have you not read this Scripture:

  “‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;²
11   this was the Lord’s doing,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

(ESV)