March 1: Psalm 60; Exodus 4; 2 Chronicles 33; Romans 1:1–17 - a podcast by Crossway

Psalm 60(Listen)

He Will Tread Down Our Foes

To the choirmaster: according to Shushan Eduth. A Miktam¹of David; for instruction; when he strove with Aram-naharaim and with Aram-zobah, and when Joab on his return struck down twelve thousand of Edom in the Valley of Salt.

60   O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses;
    you have been angry; oh, restore us.
2   You have made the land to quake; you have torn it open;
    repair its breaches, for it totters.
3   You have made your people see hard things;
    you have given us wine to drink that made us stagger.
4   You have set up a banner for those who fear you,
    that they may flee to it from the bow.²Selah
5   That your beloved ones may be delivered,
    give salvation by your right hand and answer us!
6   God has spoken in his holiness:³
    “With exultation I will divide up Shechem
    and portion out the Vale of Succoth.
7   Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine;
    Ephraim is my helmet;
    Judah is my scepter.
8   Moab is my washbasin;
    upon Edom I cast my shoe;
    over Philistia I shout in triumph.”⁴
9   Who will bring me to the fortified city?
    Who will lead me to Edom?
10   Have you not rejected us, O God?
    You do not go forth, O God, with our armies.
11   Oh, grant us help against the foe,
    for vain is the salvation of man!
12   With God we shall do valiantly;
    it is he who will tread down our foes.

(ESV)

Exodus 4(Listen)

Moses Given Powerful Signs

4 Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you.’”2 The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.”3 And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it.4 But the LORD said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand—5 “that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”6 Again, the LORD said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.”¹And he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous²like snow.7 Then God said, “Put your hand back inside your cloak.” So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh.8 “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign.9 If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”

10 But Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”11 Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”13 But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”14 Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.15 You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.16 He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him.17 And take in your hand this staff, with which you shall do the signs.”

Moses Returns to Egypt

18 Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”19 And the LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”20 So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.

21 And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son,23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”

24 At a lodging place on the way the LORD met him and sought to put him to death.25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’³feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!”26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.

27 The LORD said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do.29 Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel.30 Aaron spoke all the words that the LORD had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people.31 And the people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.

(ESV)

2 Chronicles 33(Listen)

Manasseh Reigns in Judah

33 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.2 And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel.3 For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and made Asheroth, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.4 And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem shall my name be forever.”5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.6 And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.7 And the carved image of the idol that he had made he set in the house of God, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever,8 and I will no more remove the foot of Israel from the land that I appointed for your fathers, if only they will be careful to do all that I have commanded them, all the law, the statutes, and the rules given through Moses.”9 Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel.

Manasseh’s Repentance

10 The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention.11 Therefore the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.12 And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.13 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.

14 Afterward he built an outer wall for the city of David west of Gihon, in the valley, and for the entrance into the Fish Gate, and carried it around Ophel, and raised it to a very great height. He also put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities in Judah.15 And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city.16 He also restored the altar of the LORD and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.17 Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the LORD their God.

18 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, behold, they are in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.19 And his prayer, and how God was moved by his entreaty, and all his sin and his faithlessness, and the sites on which he built high places and set up the Asherim and the images, before he humbled himself, behold, they are written in the Chronicles of the Seers.¹20 So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his house, and Amon his son reigned in his place.

Amon’s Reign and Death

21 Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.22 And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as Manasseh his father had done. Amon sacrificed to all the images that Manasseh his father had made, and served them.23 And he did not humble himself before the LORD, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but this Amon incurred guilt more and more.24 And his servants conspired against him and put him to death in his house.25 But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon. And the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.

(ESV)

Romans 1:1–17(Listen)

Greeting

1 Paul, a servant¹of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David²according to the flesh4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,6 including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,

7 To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:

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

Longing to Go to Rome

8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you10 always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God’s will I may now at last succeed in coming to you.11 For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—12 that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers,³that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.14 I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians,⁴both to the wise and to the foolish.15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

The Righteous Shall Live by Faith

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,⁵as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”⁶

(ESV)