November 16: Psalm 107; 2 Kings 16; Isaiah 3–4; John 10:1–18 - a podcast by Crossway

Psalm 107 (Listen)

Book Five

Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So

107   Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever!
2   Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
    whom he has redeemed from trouble¹
3   and gathered in from the lands,
    from the east and from the west,
    from the north and from the south.


4   Some wandered in desert wastes,
    finding no way to a city to dwell in;
5   hungry and thirsty,
    their soul fainted within them.
6   Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
7   He led them by a straight way
    till they reached a city to dwell in.
8   Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
    for his wondrous works to the children of man!
9   For he satisfies the longing soul,
    and the hungry soul he fills with good things.


10   Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    prisoners in affliction and in irons,
11   for they had rebelled against the words of God,
    and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
12   So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;
    they fell down, with none to help.
13   Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
14   He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
    and burst their bonds apart.
15   Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
    for his wondrous works to the children of man!
16   For he shatters the doors of bronze
    and cuts in two the bars of iron.


17   Some were fools through their sinful ways,
    and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;
18   they loathed any kind of food,
    and they drew near to the gates of death.
19   Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
20   He sent out his word and healed them,
    and delivered them from their destruction.
21   Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
    for his wondrous works to the children of man!
22   And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
    and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!


23   Some went down to the sea in ships,
    doing business on the great waters;
24   they saw the deeds of the LORD,
    his wondrous works in the deep.
25   For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
    which lifted up the waves of the sea.
26   They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
    their courage melted away in their evil plight;
27   they reeled and staggered like drunken men
    and were at their wits’ end.²
28   Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
29   He made the storm be still,
    and the waves of the sea were hushed.
30   Then they were glad that the waters³ were quiet,
    and he brought them to their desired haven.
31   Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love,
    for his wondrous works to the children of man!
32   Let them extol him in the congregation of the people,
    and praise him in the assembly of the elders.


33   He turns rivers into a desert,
    springs of water into thirsty ground,
34   a fruitful land into a salty waste,
    because of the evil of its inhabitants.
35   He turns a desert into pools of water,
    a parched land into springs of water.
36   And there he lets the hungry dwell,
    and they establish a city to live in;
37   they sow fields and plant vineyards
    and get a fruitful yield.
38   By his blessing they multiply greatly,
    and he does not let their livestock diminish.


39   When they are diminished and brought low
    through oppression, evil, and sorrow,
40   he pours contempt on princes
    and makes them wander in trackless wastes;
41   but he raises up the needy out of affliction
    and makes their families like flocks.
42   The upright see it and are glad,
    and all wickedness shuts its mouth.


43   Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things;
    let them consider the steadfast love of the LORD.

(ESV)

2 Kings 16 (Listen)

Ahaz Reigns in Judah

16 In the seventeenth year of Pekah the son of Remaliah, Ahaz the son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God, as his father David had done, 3 but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering,¹ according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. 4 And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.

5 Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, came up to wage war on Jerusalem, and they besieged Ahaz but could not conquer him. 6 At that time Rezin the king of Syria recovered Elath for Syria and drove the men of Judah from Elath, and the Edomites came to Elath, where they dwell to this day. 7 So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” 8 Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the LORD and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. 9 And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin.

10 When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. 11 And Uriah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. 12 And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it 13 and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. 14 And the bronze altar that was before the LORD he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the LORD, and put it on the north side of his altar. 15 And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. And throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice, but the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.” 16 Uriah the priest did all this, as King Ahaz commanded.

17 And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them, and he took down the sea² from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal. 18 And the covered way for the Sabbath that had been built inside the house and the outer entrance for the king he caused to go around the house of the LORD, because of the king of Assyria. 19 Now the rest of the acts of Ahaz that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 20 And Ahaz slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.

(ESV)

Isaiah 3–4 (Listen)

Judgment on Judah and Jerusalem

3   For behold, the Lord GOD of hosts
    is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah
  support and supply,¹
    all support of bread,
    and all support of water;
2   the mighty man and the soldier,
    the judge and the prophet,
    the diviner and the elder,
3   the captain of fifty
    and the man of rank,
  the counselor and the skillful magician
    and the expert in charms.
4   And I will make boys their princes,
    and infants² shall rule over them.
5   And the people will oppress one another,
    every one his fellow
    and every one his neighbor;
  the youth will be insolent to the elder,
    and the despised to the honorable.


6   For a man will take hold of his brother
    in the house of his father, saying:
  “You have a cloak;
    you shall be our leader,
  and this heap of ruins
    shall be under your rule”;
7   in that day he will speak out, saying:
  “I will not be a healer;³
    in my house there is neither bread nor cloak;
  you shall not make me
    leader of the people.”
8   For Jerusalem has stumbled,
    and Judah has fallen,
  because their speech and their deeds are against the LORD,
    defying his glorious presence.⁴


9   For the look on their faces bears witness against them;
    they proclaim their sin like Sodom;
    they do not hide it.
  Woe to them!
    For they have brought evil on themselves.
10   Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them,
    for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
11   Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him,
    for what his hands have dealt out shall be done to him.
12   My people—infants are their oppressors,
    and women rule over them.
  O my people, your guides mislead you
    and they have swallowed up⁵ the course of your paths.


13   The LORD has taken his place to contend;
    he stands to judge peoples.
14   The LORD will enter into judgment
    with the elders and princes of his people:
  “It is you who have devoured⁶ the vineyard,
    the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
15   What do you mean by crushing my people,
    by grinding the face of the poor?”
      declares the Lord GOD of hosts.


16   The LORD said:
  Because the daughters of Zion are haughty
    and walk with outstretched necks,
    glancing wantonly with their eyes,
  mincing along as they go,
    tinkling with their feet,
17   therefore the Lord will strike with a scab
    the heads of the daughters of Zion,
    and the LORD will lay bare their secret parts.

18 In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; 19 the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarves; 20 the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; 21 the signet rings and nose rings; 22 the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; 23 the mirrors, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils.

24   Instead of perfume there will be rottenness;
    and instead of a belt, a rope;
  and instead of well-set hair, baldness;
    and instead of a rich robe, a skirt of sackcloth;
    and branding instead of beauty.
25   Your men shall fall by the sword
    and your mighty men in battle.
26   And her gates shall lament and mourn;
    empty, she shall sit on the ground.

4 And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach.”

The Branch of the Lord Glorified

2 In that day the branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. 3 And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, 4 when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning.⁷ 5 Then the LORD will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. 6 There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.

(ESV)

John 10:1–18 (Listen)

I Am the Good Shepherd

10 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

(ESV)