March 12: Psalm 71; Exodus 17; Ezra 7; Romans 8:1–17 - a podcast by Crossway

Psalm 71(Listen)

Forsake Me Not When My Strength Is Spent

71   In you, O LORD, do I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame!
2   In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
    incline your ear to me, and save me!
3   Be to me a rock of refuge,
    to which I may continually come;
  you have given the command to save me,
    for you are my rock and my fortress.
4   Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
    from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
5   For you, O Lord, are my hope,
    my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
6   Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;
    you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
  My praise is continually of you.
7   I have been as a portent to many,
    but you are my strong refuge.
8   My mouth is filled with your praise,
    and with your glory all the day.
9   Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
    forsake me not when my strength is spent.
10   For my enemies speak concerning me;
    those who watch for my life consult together
11   and say, “God has forsaken him;
    pursue and seize him,
    for there is none to deliver him.”
12   O God, be not far from me;
    O my God, make haste to help me!
13   May my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
    with scorn and disgrace may they be covered
    who seek my hurt.
14   But I will hope continually
    and will praise you yet more and more.
15   My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
    of your deeds of salvation all the day,
    for their number is past my knowledge.
16   With the mighty deeds of the Lord GOD I will come;
    I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.
17   O God, from my youth you have taught me,
    and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
18   So even to old age and gray hairs,
    O God, do not forsake me,
  until I proclaim your might to another generation,
    your power to all those to come.
19   Your righteousness, O God,
    reaches the high heavens.
  You who have done great things,
    O God, who is like you?
20   You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
    will revive me again;
  from the depths of the earth
    you will bring me up again.
21   You will increase my greatness
    and comfort me again.
22   I will also praise you with the harp
    for your faithfulness, O my God;
  I will sing praises to you with the lyre,
    O Holy One of Israel.
23   My lips will shout for joy,
    when I sing praises to you;
    my soul also, which you have redeemed.
24   And my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long,
  for they have been put to shame and disappointed
    who sought to do me hurt.

(ESV)

Exodus 17(Listen)

Water from the Rock

17 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”4 So Moses cried to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”5 And the LORD said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.7 And he called the name of the place Massah¹and Meribah,²because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”

Israel Defeats Amalek

8 Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.9 So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.”10 So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.11 Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.12 But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.13 And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.

14 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”15 And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The LORD Is My Banner,16 saying, “A hand upon the throne³of the LORD! The LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”

(ESV)

Ezra 7(Listen)

Ezra Sent to Teach the People

7 Now after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah,2 son of Shallum, son of Zadok, son of Ahitub,3 son of Amariah, son of Azariah, son of Meraioth,4 son of Zerahiah, son of Uzzi, son of Bukki,5 son of Abishua, son of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the chief priest—6 this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was on him.

7 And there went up also to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king, some of the people of Israel, and some of the priests and Levites, the singers and gatekeepers, and the temple servants.8 And Ezra¹came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.9 For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

11 This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the LORD and his statutes for Israel:12 “Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven. Peace.²And now13 I make a decree that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you.14 For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand,15 and also to carry the silver and gold that the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem,16 with all the silver and gold that you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests, vowed willingly for the house of their God that is in Jerusalem.17 With this money, then, you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams, and lambs, with their grain offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them on the altar of the house of your God that is in Jerusalem.18 Whatever seems good to you and your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God.19 The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem.20 And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which it falls to you to provide, you may provide it out of the king’s treasury.

21 “And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence,22 up to 100 talents³of silver, 100 cors⁴of wheat, 100 baths⁵of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much.23 Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons.24 We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll on anyone of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God.

25 “And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God that is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God. And those who do not know them, you shall teach.26 Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.”

27 Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem,28 and who extended to me his steadfast love before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty officers. I took courage, for the hand of the LORD my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.

(ESV)

Romans 8:1–17(Listen)

Life in the Spirit

8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.¹2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you²free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,³he condemned sin in the flesh,4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus⁴from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Heirs with Christ

12 So then, brothers,⁵we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons⁶of God.15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

(ESV)