Day 198 The Bible in a Year (Orthodox canon)

Psalm 72 (73)

1 A Psalm for Asaph. How good is God to Israel, to the upright in heart! 2 But my feet were almost overthrown; my goings very nearly slipped. 3 For I was jealous of the transgressors, beholding the tranquillity of sinners. 4 For there is no sign of reluctance in their death: and [they have] firmness under their affliction. 5 They are not in the troubles of [other] men; and they shall not be scourged with [other] men. 6 Therefore pride has possessed them; they have clothed themselves with their injustice and ungodliness. 7 Their injustice shall go forth as out of fatness: they have fulfilled their intention. 8 They have taken counsel and spoken in wickedness: they have uttered unrighteousness loftily. 9 They have set their mouth against heaven, and their tongue has gone through upon the earth. 10 Therefore shall my people return hither: and full days shall be found with them. 11 And they said, How does God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High? 12 Behold, these [are] the sinners, and they that prosper always: they have possessed wealth. 13 And I said, Verily in vain have I justified my heart, and washed my hands in innocency. 14 For I was plagued all the day, and my reproof [was] every morning. 15 If I said, I will speak thus; behold, I [should] have broken covenant with the generation of thy children. 16 And I undertook to understand this, [but] it is too hard for me, 17 until I go into the sanctuary of God; [and so] understand the latter end. 18 Surely thou hast appointed [judgments] to them because of their crafty dealings: thou hast cast them down when they were lifted up. 19 How have they become desolate! suddenly they have failed: they have perished because of their iniquity. 20 As the dream of one awakening, O Lord, in thy city thou wilt despise their image. 21 For my heart has rejoiced, and my reins have been gladdened. 22 But I [was] vile and knew not: I became brutish before thee. 23 Yet I am continually with thee: thou hast holden my right hand. 24 Thou hast guided me by thy counsel, and thou hast taken me to thyself with glory. 25 For what have I in heaven [but thee]? and what have I desired upon the earth beside thee? 26 My heart and my flesh have failed: [but] God [is the strength] of my heart, and God is my portion for ever. 27 For, behold, they that remove themselves far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed every one that goes a whoring from thee. 28 But it is good for me to cleave close to God, to put my trust in the Lord; that I may proclaim all thy praises in the gates of the daughter of Sion.

Psalm 73 (74)

1 [A Psalm] of instruction for Asaph. Wherefore hast thou rejected [us], O God, for ever? [wherefore] is thy wrath kindled against the sheep of thy pasture? 2 Remember thy congregation which thou hast purchased from the beginning; thou didst ransom the rod of thine inheritance; this mount Sion wherein thou hast dwelt. 3 Lift up thine hands against their pride continually; [because of] all that the enemy has done wickedly in thy holy places. 4 And they that hate thee have boasted in the midst of thy feast; they have set up their standards for signs, 5 ignorantly as it were in the entrance above; 6 they cut down its doors at once with axes as in a wood of trees; they have broken it down with hatchet and stone cutter. 7 They have burnt thy sanctuary with fire to the ground; they have profaned the habitation of thy name. 8 They have said in their heart, [even] all their kindred together, Come, let us abolish the feasts of the Lord from the earth. 9 We have not seen our signs; there is no longer a prophet; and [God] will not know us any more. 10 How long, O God, shall the enemy reproach? shall the enemy provoke thy name for ever? 11 Wherefore turnest thou away thine hand, and thy right hand from the midst of thy bosom for ever? 12 But God is our King of old; he has wrought salvation in the midst of the earth. 13 Thou didst establish the sea, in thy might, thou didst break to pieces the heads of the dragons in the water. 14 Thou didst break to pieces the heads of the dragon; thou didst give him [for] meat to the Ethiopian nations. 15 Thou didst cleave fountains and torrents; thou driedst up mighty rivers. 16 The day is thine, and the night is thine; thou hast prepared the sun and the moon. 17 Thou hast made all the borders of the earth; thou hast made summer and spring. 18 Remember this thy creation: an enemy has reproached the Lord, and a foolish people has provoked thy name. 19 Deliver not to the wild beasts a soul that gives praise to thee: forget not for ever the souls of thy poor. 20 Look upon thy covenant: for the dark [places] of the earth are filled with the habitations of iniquity. 21 Let not the afflicted and shamed one be rejected: the poor and needy shall praise thy name. 22 Arise, O God, plead thy cause: remember thy reproaches that come from the foolish one all the day. 23 Forget not the voice of thy suppliants: let the pride of them that hate thee continually ascend before thee.

Psalm 74 (75)

1 For the end, Destroy not, a Psalm of a Song for Asaph. 2 We will give thanks to thee, O God, we will give thanks, and call upon thy name: I will declare all thy wonderful works. 3 When I shall take a set time, I will judge righteously. 4 The earth is dissolved, and all that dwell in it: I have strengthened its pillars. Pause. 5 I said unto the transgressors, Do not transgress; and to the sinners, Lift not up the horn. 6 Lift not up your horn on high; speak not unrighteousness against God. 7 For [good comes] neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the desert mountains. 8 For God is the judge; he puts down one, and raises up another. 9 For [there is] a cup in the hand of the Lord, full of unmingled wine; and he has turned [it] from side to side, but its dregs have not been wholly poured out; all the sinners of the earth shall drink [them]. 10 But I will exult for ever: I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. 11 And I will break all the horns of sinners; but the horns of the righteous one shall be exalted.

Romans 4

1 What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. 5 But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. 6 Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.” 9 Is this blessing then pronounced only on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. 10 How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. 11 He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them. 12 He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision. 13 For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect. 15 For the law produces wrath; for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience. 16 For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the offspring, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. 17 As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were. 18 Against hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.” 19 Without being weakened in faith, he didn’t consider his own body, already having been worn out, (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20 Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. 22 Therefore it also was “credited to him for righteousness.” 23 Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone, 24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.