Daily Wisdom Plan

¹God is honored in Judah; his name is great in Israel.

²Jerusalem is where he lives; Mount Zion is his home.

³There he has broken the fiery arrows of the enemy, the shields and swords and weapons of war. Interlude

⁴You are glorious and more majestic than the everlasting mountains.

⁵Our boldest enemies have been plundered. They lie before us in the sleep of death. No warrior could lift a hand against us.

⁶At the blast of your breath, O God of Jacob, their horses and chariots lay still.

⁷No wonder you are greatly feared! Who can stand before you when your anger explodes?

⁸From heaven you sentenced your enemies; the earth trembled and stood silent before you.

⁹You stand up to judge those who do evil, O God, and to rescue the oppressed of the earth. Interlude

¹⁰Human defiance only enhances your glory, for you use it as a weapon.

¹¹Make vows to the LORD your God, and keep them. Let everyone bring tribute to the Awesome One.

¹²For he breaks the pride of princes, and the kings of the earth fear him.

¹I cry out to God; yes, I shout. Oh, that God would listen to me!

²When I was in deep trouble, I searched for the Lord. All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven, but my soul was not comforted.

³I think of God, and I moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help. Interlude

⁴You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray!

⁵I think of the good old days, long since ended,

⁶when my nights were filled with joyful songs. I search my soul and ponder the difference now.

⁷Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be kind to me?

⁸Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed?

⁹Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion? Interlude

¹⁰And I said, “This is my fate; the Most High has turned his hand against me.”

¹¹But then I recall all you have done, O LORD; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.

¹²They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works.

¹³O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you?

¹⁴You are the God of great wonders! You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.

¹⁵By your strong arm, you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Interlude

¹⁶When the Red Sea saw you, O God, its waters looked and trembled! The sea quaked to its very depths.

¹⁷The clouds poured down rain; the thunder rumbled in the sky. Your arrows of lightning flashed.

¹⁸Your thunder roared from the whirlwind; the lightning lit up the world! The earth trembled and shook.

¹⁹Your road led through the sea, your pathway through the mighty waters — a pathway no one knew was there!

²⁰You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.

¹O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying,

²for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past —

³stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us.

⁴We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD, about his power and his mighty wonders.

⁵For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel. He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children,

⁶so the next generation might know them — even the children not yet born — and they in turn will teach their own children.

⁷So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.

⁸Then they will not be like their ancestors — stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.

⁹The warriors of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned their backs and fled on the day of battle.

¹⁰They did not keep God’s covenant and refused to live by his instructions.

¹¹They forgot what he had done — the great wonders he had shown them,

¹²the miracles he did for their ancestors on the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.

¹³For he divided the sea and led them through, making the water stand up like walls!

¹⁴In the daytime he led them by a cloud, and all night by a pillar of fire.

¹⁵He split open the rocks in the wilderness to give them water, as from a gushing spring.

¹⁶He made streams pour from the rock, making the waters flow down like a river!

¹⁷Yet they kept on sinning against him, rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

¹⁸They stubbornly tested God in their hearts, demanding the foods they craved.

¹⁹They even spoke against God himself, saying, “God can’t give us food in the wilderness.

²⁰Yes, he can strike a rock so water gushes out, but he can’t give his people bread and meat.”

²¹When the LORD heard them, he was furious. The fire of his wrath burned against Jacob. Yes, his anger rose against Israel,

²²for they did not believe God or trust him to care for them.

²³But he commanded the skies to open; he opened the doors of heaven.

²⁴He rained down manna for them to eat; he gave them bread from heaven.

²⁵They ate the food of angels! God gave them all they could hold.

²⁶He released the east wind in the heavens and guided the south wind by his mighty power.

²⁷He rained down meat as thick as dust — birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore!

²⁸He caused the birds to fall within their camp and all around their tents.

²⁹The people ate their fill. He gave them what they craved.

³⁰But before they satisfied their craving, while the meat was yet in their mouths,

³¹the anger of God rose against them, and he killed their strongest men. He struck down the finest of Israel’s young men.

³²But in spite of this, the people kept sinning. Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him.

³³So he ended their lives in failure, their years in terror.

³⁴When God began killing them, they finally sought him. They repented and took God seriously.

³⁵Then they remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their redeemer.

³⁶But all they gave him was lip service; they lied to him with their tongues.

³⁷Their hearts were not loyal to him. They did not keep his covenant.

³⁸Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and did not destroy them all. Many times he held back his anger and did not unleash his fury!

³⁹For he remembered that they were merely mortal, gone like a breath of wind that never returns.

⁴⁰Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland.

⁴¹Again and again they tested God’s patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not remember his power and how he rescued them from their enemies.

⁴³They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plain of Zoan.

⁴⁴For he turned their rivers into blood, so no one could drink from the streams.

⁴⁵He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them and hordes of frogs to ruin them.

⁴⁶He gave their crops to caterpillars; their harvest was consumed by locusts.

⁴⁷He destroyed their grapevines with hail and shattered their sycamore-figs with sleet.

⁴⁸He abandoned their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.

⁴⁹He loosed on them his fierce anger — all his fury, rage, and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels.

⁵⁰He turned his anger against them; he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives but ravaged them with the plague.

⁵¹He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt.

⁵²But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness.

⁵³He kept them safe so they were not afraid; but the sea covered their enemies.

⁵⁴He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this land of hills he had won for them.

⁵⁵He drove out the nations before them; he gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes.

⁵⁶But they kept testing and rebelling against God Most High. They did not obey his laws.

⁵⁷They turned back and were as faithless as their parents. They were as undependable as a crooked bow.

⁵⁸They angered God by building shrines to other gods; they made him jealous with their idols.

⁵⁹When God heard them, he was very angry, and he completely rejected Israel.

⁶⁰Then he abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh, the Tabernacle where he had lived among the people.

⁶¹He allowed the Ark of his might to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands.

⁶²He gave his people over to be butchered by the sword, because he was so angry with his own people — his special possession.

⁶³Their young men were killed by fire; their young women died before singing their wedding songs.

⁶⁴Their priests were slaughtered, and their widows could not mourn their deaths.

⁶⁵Then the Lord rose up as though waking from sleep, like a warrior aroused from a drunken stupor.

⁶⁶He routed his enemies and sent them to eternal shame.

⁶⁷But he rejected Joseph’s descendants; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁸He chose instead the tribe of Judah, and Mount Zion, which he loved.

⁶⁹There he built his sanctuary as high as the heavens, as solid and enduring as the earth.

⁷⁰He chose his servant David, calling him from the sheep pens.

⁷¹He took David from tending the ewes and lambs and made him the shepherd of Jacob’s descendants — God’s own people, Israel.

⁷²He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skillful hands.