Free Daily Bible Study Podcast

Deuteronomy 4 | Psalms 86–87 | Isaiah 32 | Revelation 2

The phrase “scandal of particularity” describes the shock of realizing that Yahweh chose to save the world through a particular person in a particular place at a particular time. Jesus, of course, is the greatest example of the scandal of particularity, since he was born to a poor Jewish teenage girl from the tiny, out of the way town of Nazareth, during a period when Israel lived under the shameful oppression of the Roman occupation. Why should the Savior of the world, the eternally begotten Son of the Father, be born there? To her?

But the scandal of particularity in salvation history stretches all the way back to the point that Yahweh singled out one man from all the world—an idolator (Josh. 24:2)—to bless the entire world through his offspring, even when that man’s offspring did not yet exist at the time. God chose to save the world through Abram?

In Deuteronomy 4:32–40, Moses brings this scandal into clearer focus. He challenges them to inquire from all the peoples of the whole earth: has any other people ever heard a god speaking, as Israel has (Deut. 4:33)? Has any god ever redeemed one nation out of their captivity to another nation by all manner of supernatural power, as Yahweh redeemed Israel out of Egypt (Deut. 4:34)?

And what other nation can boast the covenantal love of Yahweh, the true God of heaven above and earth beneath? Who else has seen his fire and heard his words?

Remember, then, that we are speaking about Israel. This is a ragtag, unimpressive, small, weak nation. In the Promised Land alone there were seven larger, stronger nations than Israel (Deut. 7:1), not including the mighty empire of Egypt, from whom Israel had just escaped.

Yahweh chose Israel? Simply so that Israel would know that Yahweh alone is God and that beside him there is no other god (Deut. 4:35)? Purely out of his free love for their forefathers (Deut. 4:37)?

And, to bring this into the New Testament teaching about election, we read in Ephesians 1:3–10 (and elsewhere) that the Father chose us in Christ from eternity past. This is a radical, shocking scandal, but we do not think often enough about it in this light because the story has largely become routine and pedestrian to us. Of course, Yahweh chose Israel. Obviously, Jesus is the Son of God, born as a human being to his mother Mary. Unquestionably, Yahweh loves me.

But if we stopped long enough to recognize how bizarre it is for the creator of the whole universe to speak to us, to go to war for us, even to die for us, the only proper response is faith, love, worship, and ultimately obedience.

When was the last time you were genuinely surprised by your realization of the lavish grace of God toward you?

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Deuteronomy 3 | Psalm 85 | Isaiah 31 | Revelation 1

If it is tragic to read Moses’s prayer that Yahweh would grant him the right to enter into the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 3:23–25, then it is terrifying to read Yahweh’s flat refusal of Moses’s request: “But the LORD was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me. And the LORD said to me, Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again’” (Deut. 3:26). What are we to take from this passage to learn about how Yahweh responds to our own desperate prayers?

First, we should recognize that sin has consequences. Although God assures us of the perfect power of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ to forgive us of our sins, sin can still destroy relationships or disqualify us from specific opportunities for ministry. In Moses’s failure, we should see a call to remain vigilant against the destructive lure of sin in our lives.

Second, we should not overlook the grace that Yahweh extends to Moses to see the Promised Land before he dies. In Deuteronomy 3:27, we read that Yahweh has graciously instructed Moses to look upon the Promised Land from the top of Pisgah. Although our heavenly Father may discipline us in the same way that all fathers discipline their children (Heb. 12:3–17), we should not overlook his grace toward us when we fail.

Third, we should remember that none of us is a mission-critical cog in God’s larger plan. Yahweh is not dependent upon even the great Moses to bring Israel into the Promised Land. Rather, Yahweh instructs Moses to prepare Israel for their next leader: “Charge Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he shall go over at the head of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land that you shall see” (Deut. 3:28). The call on our life is not to take center stage in God’s plan but to point to the glory of Jesus. He must increase, and we must decrease (John 3:30).

When we pray with the wrong assumptions, we would do well to remember Robert Law’s insight: “The marvellous and supernatural power of prayer consists, not in bringing God’s Will down to us, but in lifting our will up to His.”1 We can pray in faith, knowing that “if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14–15). So, we ought to pray boldly and confidently—as the author of Hebrews instructs us, by lifting our drooping hands and strengthening our weak knees (Heb. 12:12)—but we must do so with the recognition that God is God, and we are not.

For what are you wrestling with God in prayer today?

1 Robert Law, The Tests of Life: A Study of the First Epistle of St. John, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1909), 301.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Deuteronomy 2 | Psalms 83–84 | Isaiah 30 | Jude 1

As we discussed yesterday, Deuteronomy gives us Moses’s final sermon before his death. It may seem strange, then, that Deuteronomy, the “second law,” does not begin with the law at all. Instead, Deuteronomy opens with a lengthy retelling of Israel’s history, beginning from the point that Israel left Mount Sinai in the land of Horeb (Deut. 1:6). Then, Moses retells the story of Israel’s refusal to enter into the Promised Land (Deut. 1:19–46), their wanderings through the wilderness (Deut. 2:1–25), and their victories over King Sihon (Deut. 2:26–37) and King Og (Deut. 3:1–22). Finally, Moses recounts his own, desperate prayer for mercy to enter the Promised Land (Deut. 3:23–29), which we will look at in more detail in tomorrow’s meditation.

So, why would Moses start with a story? If this is to be an exhortation for the people of Israel to keep the law, why not segue immediately into the Ten Commandments, which don’t come up until Deuteronomy 5? To begin, these stories remind us again that Yahweh’s relationship with Israel begins with grace, not law. Yahweh did not offer the law as a means for his people to gain his favor as though the law were a qualification exam. Instead, from the beginning Yahweh had specifically chosen Abraham out of all peoples on the face of the earth, and he had redeemed Abraham’s offspring from their bondage in Egypt.

The stories we see here, then, underscore the fact that Yahweh has continued to remain faithful to his people, even during their time in the wilderness. The first story we encounter tells us about Israel’s failure to trust Yahweh to enter into the Promised Land and about Yahweh’s punishment for their sin by dooming that generation to die in the wilderness. But then, Moses reminds Israel that Yahweh still provided for all of their needs, so they “lacked nothing” (Deut. 2:7). And more than that, Moses reminds them of the great military victories Yahweh gave them over King Sihon and King Og, by which Israel received the firstfruits of their inheritance in the land east of the Jordan.1

Even though Deuteronomy seems, at first, to be the “second law” for Israel, make no mistake—Deuteronomy is about Yahweh’s grace to his people. Yahweh does not call his people to be their taskmaster, but to be their God—and even their husband. In the law, rather, Yahweh graciously reveals what he wants from his people, that they would love him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and that they would love their neighbor as themselves.

In the same way, Jesus demands that we obey his commandments (e.g., John 14:15), but he gives his commandments to those whom he has already chosen in love (John 15:16). God’s grace transcends the law, running behind, in front, beneath, and above it.

1 See the May 23rd meditation from Numbers 32.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Deuteronomy 1 | Psalms 81–82 | Isaiah 29 | 3 John 1

Although Deuteronomy is one of the longer books in the Old Testament, with thirty-four chapters, it does not represent the passage of much time. In Deuteronomy, we do not read new narratives of Israel’s journey through the wilderness, nor of new battles Israel fights, nor even of new ways that Yahweh provides for his people. For the most part, Deuteronomy includes only one speech—the final words of Moses before he dies, immediately before God’s people enter into the Promised Land under the new leadership of Joshua.

Through this speech, Moses renews Yahweh’s covenant with Israel one final time before his death. Since Yahweh’s covenant is one in which Yahweh makes promises to Israel and also commands Israel to obey his law,1 the focus in Deuteronomy is on words—the words that Moses preaches, but even more so the word of Yahweh as revealed through his law. Even the Hebrew name for this book, ’elleh haddebarim, means “these are the words.”2

Deuteronomy—the English name—comes from a Greek translation of Deuteronomy 17:18, where the phrase “copy of the law” was translated as “a second law” (deuteronomion).3 But, it is important to recognize that Deuteronomy does not contain new legislation from Yahweh. In Deuteronomy, Moses is instead expounding, clarifying, and applying the law to the people of Israel—not simply repeating it, but offering a commentary on the whole law that Israel had received at Mount Sinai.4

Still, these are not the dry, intellectual final thoughts of an aloof scholar—Deuteronomy is Moses’s final plea for Israel to obey the word of Yahweh after Moses’s death, as Peter Craigie notes in his commentary: “The style is hortatory, that of an orator addressing his congregation with words designed to move them to obedience and commitment to the Lord of the covenant.”5 It would be far more accurate, then, to say that Deuteronomy really represents Moses’s final sermon before his death, which is what we read in Deuteronomy 1:5: “Moses undertook to explain this law.”

Deuteronomy is the glory of Moses’s ministry. In this book, Moses reminds Israel of how Yahweh had intervened to save them, calling Israel to be his people out of free grace and now demanding that his people walk in his laws and statutes. Deuteronomy represents the best that Moses has to offer.

But in Deuteronomy, we will also see that the glory of Moses’s ministry is already fading. Not only will Joshua replace Moses as Israel’s leader in the short term, but Moses himself will testify to the coming of a much greater leader for God’s people in the long term—one who would come as a king (Deut. 17:14–20) and who would qualify as a greater prophet than even Moses (Deut. 18:15–22).

As we study Deuteronomy, pay attention to the way the shadow of Jesus Christ grows larger and larger.

1 P. C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1976), 89.

2 Ibid., 17.

3 John H. Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative: A Biblical-Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 423.

4 Ibid.

5 Craigie, Deuteronomy, 17.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Numbers 36 | Psalm 80 | Isaiah 28 | 2 John 1

Numbers 36 continues the story that we read back in Numbers 27, when the daughters of Zelophehad petitioned Moses to receive the inheritance that had belonged to their father, since he had died without a male heir to carry on the family’s place in Israel. It seems that, as time has gone on, the people discovered another technicality that affected the long-term possession of the land within the half-tribe of Manasseh.

The issue is this: while Yahweh did command that the daughters of Zelophehad should possess their father’s inheritance in the absence of a male heir (Num. 27:5–11), the heads of Manasseh realized that if the daughters of Zelophehad married men from other tribes, their inheritance would legitimately and permanently pass to those tribes. Furthermore, during the Year of Jubilee, their inheritance would be restored to those other tribes, since the jubilee only restored property that had been sold temporarily to pay off debts (Num. 36:1–4).

To resolve this issue, Yahweh offered a fairly simple solution: the daughters of Zelophehad could marry whomever they wanted to, so long as those men were from the same clan (Num. 36:5–8). That way, their inheritance would stay within the clan, rather than passing to another tribe altogether.

In these final chapters of the book of Numbers, we have read multiple stories about the preparations that Moses took with Israel to ready them for taking claim to their inheritance. Why was the issue of inheritance so critical to require this much space in the Scriptures? And why is this story the final word in the whole book of Numbers?

Put simply, the inheritance Yahweh was giving his people was the means by which he would give his people himself. The Promised Land was the place where Yahweh would dwell with his people, so the land was the means by which Israel would be Yahweh’s people and Yahweh would be Israel’s God.

For the same reason, the final word of the New Testament is the story of the new Jerusalem in which we will dwell with God in Revelation 21–22. The important part of those passages isn’t the precious jewels out of which God will build his holy city but rather the fact that, as the loud voice from the throne announces, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3).

Christian, as strange as these discussions of the particularities of the inheritance within the clans of Israel may strike you, pay attention and do not miss the point—this is your hope. You stand to inherit Christ so that you may dwell with him forever, and “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:2).

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Numbers 35 | Psalm 79 | Isaiah 27 | 1 John 5

In Numbers 35, Yahweh lays out a plan for creating cities of refuge—six of the forty-eight cities that the Levites would inhabit (Num. 35:6–7). These cities of refuge were a place for a person to flee until he could stand trial if he brought about the death of another person unintentionally (Num. 35:11–12).

In those days, the closest relative of a murder victim would avenge his relative’s death. So, in cases where someone killed another person with a stone, iron, or wooden tool or where that person had been lying in wait to attack their enemy, that person was considered a murderer, and the proper punishment for murder was the death penalty (Num. 35:16–21). Such a murderer had attacked a human being made in the image of God, and the law had required the death penalty for murderers ever since the covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:5–6). No ransom was permitted to stop the murderer’s execution, since shedding human blood through murder defiled the holy land that Yahweh was giving to his people (Num. 35:30–34).

But there were other cases where someone accidentally caused another’s death, either by striking him in such a way that would not normally cause death and without lying in wait (Num. 35:22–23) or, for example, by dropping something without seeing the other person (Num. 35:23). In those cases, the manslayer could flee to the city of refuge and receive the protection of Levites from the avenger of blood. But even if the manslayer was found innocent of murder at his trial by the congregation of Israel, he would remain in the city of refuge all the days of his life until the death of the high priest (Num. 35:25). If the avenger of blood discovered the manslayer outside the walls of the city of refuge before the high priest had died, the avenger could execute the manslayer without guilt (Num. 35:27).

This provision obviously served a practical purpose in the nation of Israel, but it also foreshadowed the reason why Jesus had to die. Jesus taught that anyone who has even been angry with his brother in his heart is guilty of murder (Matt. 5:21–22), so that not a single one of us stands innocent of blood—and our avenger of blood is none other than Yahweh himself.

But rather than pursuing our death, Yahweh graciously sent his own Son to be our great high priest, whose death meant that we could go free, without fear of Yahweh’s wrath against us. The gospel is first and foremost the story of how Jesus exhausted the wrath of his Father against wicked sinners like you and me, making peace for us through his death on the cross. Rejoice—you may go free, because your high priest has died for you.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Numbers 34 | Psalm 78:38–72 | Isaiah 26 | 1 John 4

In Numbers 34, Yahweh commands Moses to prepare Israel in two ways to enter into the Promised Land—first, by spelling out the boundaries of the land that Israel would inhabit and, second, by appointing a new set of tribal chiefs for Israel. The time is drawing nearer when Moses would die and also when Israel would take possession of the land that God had promised to give them as an inheritance.

These two topics, however, are closely tied together. The whole point for appointing chiefs among each of the tribes of Israel is to identify the men “who shall divide the land to you for inheritance” (Num. 34:17). So, Yahweh first identifies the two new leaders over the entire nation: Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun. Then, Yahweh identifies leaders for each of the tribes of Israel except for the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, who have already identified their inheritance east of the Jordan (Num. 34:13–15).

Dividing the land for Israel’s inheritance is a fascinating rationale for appointing tribal chiefs, since it is different from the reason given in Numbers 1:4–5, 44 for appointing chiefs in the previous generation. At that time, Yahweh told Moses to appoint chiefs among each of the tribes of Israel to help with the census—and remember that the purpose of the census was to help identify all the men among Israel who were able to go to war (Num. 1:3, 26:2). So, the tribal chiefs were appointed specifically for helping to raise up Israel’s army.

While the people of Israel have fought a few battles during their wilderness wanderings in the book of Numbers (14:39–45; 21:1–3, 21–30, 31–35; 25:16–18; 31:1–12), the real warfare will not begin until they enter the Promised Land. And yet, the focus has already shifted to the inheritance that lay beyond the fighting. Yahweh had promised to give them an inheritance, and, although they would need to drive the Canaanites out of the Promised Land, Yahweh sets their eyes on the prize before them—and not on the fighting.

We find an echo of this principle in the book of Ephesians, where Paul opens his letter by speaking not of our spiritual warfare but of the inheritance that we have already obtained in Christ, guaranteed by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:11–14). Jesus Christ himself has won the decisive victory at the cross, so Paul details neither the spiritual nature of our struggle nor our armor until the very end of the letter. We must fight, but our victory in Christ is a foregone conclusion.

Let us set our eyes, then, not on the struggle but on the prize set before us in Jesus Christ.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Numbers 33 | Psalm 78:1–37 | Isaiah 25 | 1 John 3

In Numbers 33, we see the whole story of Yahweh’s covenant with his people laid out in brief, recounting every event from the day of their redemption out of the hand of Egypt (Num. 33:3) all the way through the mission that Yahweh was giving his people on the brink of the Jordan River (Num. 33:49) as they prepared to enter into the Promised Land. By this story, Moses reminds Israel of Yahweh’s faithfulness to them through their forty years of wandering in the wilderness.

Then, Yahweh instructs Moses to charge Israel with their mission in Canaan: Israel was to drive out the inhabitants and destroy entirely the remnants of false worship from the land (Num. 33:50–52). After they took possession of the land, they would then receive their inheritance according to the size of their tribes (Num. 33:53–54). But Yahweh closes this passage with a warning: if his people fail to drive out the inhabitants of the land, those inhabitants would be a thorn in the side of Israel, and Yahweh even goes so far as to say this: “And I will do to you as I thought to do to them” (Num. 33:56)—that is, Yahweh would drive Israel out of the Promised Land.

The reason that Yahweh is deadly serious about all this is that he knows just how quickly Israel could be led astray from following him if they do not expel from the land the foreign people and their false gods. And, as we continue to read this story, we find that Yahweh was absolutely accurate in his warnings—the people would fail to drive the inhabitants completely out of the land (Judg. 1:27–2:5), initiating a cycle within Israel of idolatrous apostasy, subjugation to foreign powers, redemption as Yahweh raises up new leaders to save his people, and then back into apostasy after those leaders died. It was only after Israel had been entirely crushed, conquered completely, and under the boot of Rome that God would send his Son into the world—not to be just one more charismatic leader who would save God’s people for a season, but to lay down his life in order to save his people for all eternity.

If you are in Christ, this is your story. This is your redemption, when Yahweh brought you out of your bondage to sin and death, and this is the inheritance that he offers you—nothing less than eternal union with the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Preach this story again and again to remind yourself of God’s faithfulness to you through his Son, not only to stay vigilant in putting to death the last vestiges of sin in your life (Rom. 8:13), but also to renew yourself with hope that Yahweh will be faithful to complete the good work he began in you (Phil. 1:6).

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Numbers 32 | Psalm 77 | Isaiah 24 | 1 John 2

The story in Numbers 32 is more important than we might realize at first. In fact, we will continue to hear echoes of the settling of Reuben and Gad in Gilead, the land east of the Jordan, through the rest of the Bible.

We should pay close attention to the agreement that Moses makes with the people of Reuben and Gad. Those tribes would gain the land of Gilead as their inheritance since it was good land for their livestock (Num. 32:1), but only if they agreed to assist their brothers in the conquest of the Promised Land (Num. 32:16–27).

Intriguingly, we learn here that this land of Gilead is the land that formerly belonged to Sihon, king of the Amorites, and to Og, king of Bashan (Num. 32:33). Curiously, these two kings are later mentioned by name twice in the Psalms as the kings whom Yahweh struck down to give their land as a heritage to his people forever (Ps. 135:10–12, 136:17–22).

Why, then, don’t the psalmists sing about Yahweh’s victories over the kings of Jericho or Ai or even of Adoni-zedek, the king of Jerusalem (Josh. 10:1) instead of Sihon and Og? Simply put, the lands of Sihon and Og represent the firstfruits of the Promised Land. In literature, this is called a synecdoche, when a part of something represents the whole. By writing about these victories, they mean us to think of all the victories in the Promised Land.

Gilead itself becomes an important location in the Bible. For example, the prophet Elijah was from the city of Tishbe in Gilead (1 Kgs. 17:1). But even more, the prophet Jeremiah asks a haunting question to illustrate the failure of Israel as God’s people: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?” (Jer. 8:22). Again, Gilead is used as a synecdoche for all of Israel—to ask why there is no balm in Gilead is to ask why there is no health for all God’s people.

But the prophet Jeremiah also foretold a day when the balm of Gilead would again heal—and not only Israel but all the nations: “Go up to Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt! In vain you have used many medicines; there is no healing for you” (Jer. 45:11).

Gilead is a symbol not only of the victories that Yahweh had provided for his people in the past but also of their future hope that Yahweh would one day raise up out of his people a Great Physician with the power to heal—which is why Jesus said explicitly that he had come to heal the sick (Mark 2:17).

There is balm in Gilead, and he heals even the sickest of sinners.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Numbers 31 | Psalm 75–76 | Isaiah 23 | 1 John 1

The text of Numbers 31 raises many difficult questions about subjects like warfare, genocide, plundering, and slavery. Yahweh instructs Moses to “avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites” (Num. 31:2) for two major events. First, the Midianites were involved along with the Moabites in hiring Balaam, the son of Beor, for the purpose of cursing Israel (Num. 22:7). Second, the Moabites and the Midianites had led the people of Israel astray to worship the Baal of Peor (Num. 25:1–3, 6, 17–18; 31:16).

For these crimes, Yahweh commands that they be destroyed—including not only the adult males whom they met in battle (Num. 31:7) but also every male child and every woman who was not a virgin (Num. 31:17). The virgin girls who were captured were available as slaves or as wives (Num. 31:18). Then, the spoils of war were divided into two parts, one part for the people of Israel generally and the other part for those who had gone out into battle (Num. 31:27).

This is not an easy passage to read, and many people would point to passages like this as evidence that the God of the Bible is not righteous in all that he commands. What, then, should we make of this?

First, we should recognize that attempting to curse Israel and leading them into the worship of a false god represented reprehensible wickedness. Yahweh had called Israel to be his special possession in all the earth, so leading them into apostasy was a horrific crime.

This helps us to see that God is not a genocidal maniac. Rather, he commanded this vengeance against Midian and the destruction of all the peoples in the Promised Land for the same reason: justice. In fact, Yahweh had told Abraham all the way back in Genesis 15:16 that Israel would not receive the Promised Land until the wickedness of the people living there reached a tipping point.

We see in these stories not unrestrained violence but the kingdom of God breaking into this world, punishing evildoers and preserving the people of God through grace. These scenes are not given to us for imitation today, since all vengeance belongs to Yahweh alone (Rom. 12:19). Rather, these stories announce in advance what King Jesus will do when he returns. He came once in peace as a meek, suffering servant, but he will come again as a mighty warrior king to execute justice among the nations.

And as we approach that day, let us heed the words of the psalmist: “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear; and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way; for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:10–12).

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.