The Daughters of Zelophehad

¹Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad the son of Hepher, son of Gilead, son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of Manasseh the son of Joseph. The names of his daughters were: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. ²And they stood before Moses and before Eleazar the priest and before the chiefs and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, saying, ³“Our father died in the wilderness. He was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin. And he had no sons. ⁴Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father's brothers.”

⁵Moses brought their case before the Lord. ⁶And the Lord said to Moses, ⁷“The daughters of Zelophehad are right. You shall give them possession of an inheritance among their father's brothers and transfer the inheritance of their father to them. ⁸And you shall speak to the people of Israel, saying, ‘If a man dies and has no son, then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter. ⁹And if he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. ¹⁰And if he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father's brothers. ¹¹And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. And it shall be for the people of Israel a statute and rule, as the Lord commanded Moses.’”

Joshua to Succeed Moses

¹²The Lord said to Moses, “Go up into this mountain of Abarim and see the land that I have given to the people of Israel. ¹³When you have seen it, you also shall be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was, ¹⁴because you rebelled against my word in the wilderness of Zin when the congregation quarreled, failing to uphold me as holy at the waters before their eyes.” (These are the waters of Meribah of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.) ¹⁵Moses spoke to the Lord, saying, ¹⁶“Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation ¹⁷who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd.” ¹⁸So the Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him. ¹⁹Make him stand before Eleazar the priest and all the congregation, and you shall commission him in their sight. ²⁰You shall invest him with some of your authority, that all the congregation of the people of Israel may obey. ²¹And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the Lord. At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he and all the people of Israel with him, the whole congregation.” ²²And Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He took Joshua and made him stand before Eleazar the priest and the whole congregation, ²³and he laid his hands on him and commissioned him as the Lord directed through Moses.

O Lord, Do Not Delay

To the choirmaster. Of David, for the memorial offering.

¹Make haste, O God, to deliver me!

O Lord, make haste to help me!

²Let them be put to shame and confusion

who seek my life!

Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor

who delight in my hurt!

³Let them turn back because of their shame

who say, “Aha, Aha!”

⁴May all who seek you

rejoice and be glad in you!

May those who love your salvation

say evermore, “God is great!”

⁵But I am poor and needy;

hasten to me, O God!

You are my help and my deliverer;

O Lord, do not delay!

Forsake Me Not When My Strength Is Spent

¹In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;

let me never be put to shame!

²In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;

incline your ear to me, and save me!

³Be 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.

⁴Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,

from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.

⁵For you, O Lord, are my hope,

my trust, O Lord, from my youth.

⁶Upon 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.

⁷I have been as a portent to many,

but you are my strong refuge.

⁸My mouth is filled with your praise,

and with your glory all the day.

⁹Do not cast me off in the time of old age;

forsake me not when my strength is spent.

¹⁰For my enemies speak concerning me;

those who watch for my life consult together

¹¹and say, “God has forsaken him;

pursue and seize him,

for there is none to deliver him.”

¹²O God, be not far from me;

O my God, make haste to help me!

¹³May my accusers be put to shame and consumed;

with scorn and disgrace may they be covered

who seek my hurt.

¹⁴But I will hope continually

and will praise you yet more and more.

¹⁵My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,

of your deeds of salvation all the day,

for their number is past my knowledge.

¹⁶With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come;

I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.

¹⁷O God, from my youth you have taught me,

and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.

¹⁸So 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.

¹⁹Your righteousness, O God,

reaches the high heavens.

You who have done great things,

O God, who is like you?

²⁰You 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.

²¹You will increase my greatness

and comfort me again.

²²I 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.

²³My lips will shout for joy,

when I sing praises to you;

my soul also, which you have redeemed.

²⁴And 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.

An Oracle Concerning Damascus

¹An oracle concerning Damascus.

Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city

and will become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer are deserted;

they will be for flocks,

which will lie down, and none will make them afraid.

³The fortress will disappear from Ephraim,

and the kingdom from Damascus;

and the remnant of Syria will be

like the glory of the children of Israel,

declares the Lord of hosts.

⁴And in that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low,

and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.

⁵And it shall be as when the reaper gathers standing grain

and his arm harvests the ears,

and as when one gleans the ears of grain

in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶Gleanings will be left in it,

as when an olive tree is beaten—

two or three berries

in the top of the highest bough,

four or five

on the branches of a fruit tree,

declares the Lord God of Israel.

⁷In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel. ⁸He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.

⁹In that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the wooded heights and the hilltops, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation

and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge;

therefore, though you plant pleasant plants

and sow the vine-branch of a stranger,

¹¹though you make them grow1 on the day that you plant them,

and make them blossom in the morning that you sow,

yet the harvest will flee away2

in a day of grief and incurable pain.

¹²Ah, the thunder of many peoples;

they thunder like the thundering of the sea!

Ah, the roar of nations;

they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!

¹³The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,

but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,

chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind

and whirling dust before the storm.

¹⁴At evening time, behold, terror!

Before morning, they are no more!

This is the portion of those who loot us,

and the lot of those who plunder us.

An Oracle Concerning Cush

¹Ah, land of whirring wings

that is beyond the rivers of Cush,1

²which sends ambassadors by the sea,

in vessels of papyrus on the waters!

Go, you swift messengers,

to a nation tall and smooth,

to a people feared near and far,

a nation mighty and conquering,

whose land the rivers divide.

³All you inhabitants of the world,

you who dwell on the earth,

when a signal is raised on the mountains, look!

When a trumpet is blown, hear!

⁴For thus the Lord said to me:

“I will quietly look from my dwelling

like clear heat in sunshine,

like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

⁵For before the harvest, when the blossom is over,

and the flower becomes a ripening grape,

he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks,

and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.

⁶They shall all of them be left

to the birds of prey of the mountains

and to the beasts of the earth.

And the birds of prey will summer on them,

and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

⁷At that time tribute will be brought to the Lord of hosts

from a people tall and smooth,

from a people feared near and far,

a nation mighty and conquering,

whose land the rivers divide,

to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of hosts.

Shepherd the Flock of God

¹So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: ²shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight,1 not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you;2 not for shameful gain, but eagerly; ³not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. ⁴And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. ⁵Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

⁶Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, ⁷casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. ⁸Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. ⁹Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. ¹⁰And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. ¹¹To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Final Greetings

¹²By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. ¹³She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son. ¹⁴Greet one another with the kiss of love.

Peace to all of you who are in Christ.