2 Chronicles 5

1 John 4

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND THE SPIRIT OF ERROR
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.

4 You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

KNOWING GOD THROUGH LOVE
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God ​— ​God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

Nahum 3

NINEVEH’S DOWNFALL
Woe to the city of blood,
totally deceitful,
full of plunder,
never without prey.
2 The crack of the whip
and rumble of the wheel,
galloping horse
and jolting chariot!
3 Charging horseman,
flashing sword,
shining spear;
heaps of slain,
mounds of corpses,
dead bodies without end —
they stumble over their dead.
4 Because of the continual prostitution of the prostitute,
the attractive mistress of sorcery,
who treats nations and clans like merchandise
by her prostitution and sorcery,
5 I am against you.
This is the declaration of the Lord of Armies.
I will lift your skirts over your face
and display your nakedness to nations,
your shame to kingdoms.
6 I will throw filth on you
and treat you with contempt;
I will make a spectacle of you.
7 Then all who see you will recoil from you, saying,
“Nineveh is devastated;
who will show sympathy to her? ”
Where can I find anyone to comfort you?
8 Are you better than Thebes
that sat along the Nile
with water surrounding her,
whose rampart was the sea,
the river her wall?
9 Cush and Egypt were her endless source of strength;
Put and Libya were among her allies.
10 Yet she became an exile;
she went into captivity.
Her children were also dashed to pieces
at the head of every street.
They cast lots for her dignitaries,
and all her nobles were bound in chains.
11 You also will become drunk;
you will hide.
You also will seek refuge from the enemy.
12 All your fortresses are fig trees
with figs that ripened first;
when shaken, they fall —
right into the mouth of the eater!
13 Look, your troops are like women among you;
your land’s city gates
are wide open to your enemies.
Fire will devour the bars of your gates.
14 Draw water for the siege;
strengthen your fortresses.
Step into the clay and tread the mortar;
take hold of the brick-mold!
15 The fire will devour you there;
the sword will cut you down.
It will devour you like the young locust.
Multiply yourselves like the young locust;
multiply like the swarming locust!
16 You have made your merchants
more numerous than the stars of the sky.
The young locust strips the land
and flies away.
17 Your court officials are like the swarming locust,
and your scribes like clouds of locusts,
which settle on the walls on a cold day;
when the sun rises, they take off,
and no one knows where they are.
18 King of Assyria, your shepherds slumber;
your officers sleep.
Your people are scattered across the mountains
with no one to gather them together.
19 There is no remedy for your injury;
your wound is severe.
All who hear the news about you
will clap their hands because of you,
for who has not experienced
your constant cruelty?

Psalm 114

GOD’S DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL
When Israel came out of Egypt —
the house of Jacob from a people
who spoke a foreign language —
2 Judah became his sanctuary,
Israel, his dominion.
3 The sea looked and fled;
the Jordan turned back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams,
the hills, like lambs.
5 Why was it, sea, that you fled?
Jordan, that you turned back?
6 Mountains, that you skipped like rams?
Hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 who turned the rock into a pool,
the flint into a spring.

Psalm 115

GLORY TO GOD ALONE
Not to us, Lord, not to us,
but to your name give glory
because of your faithful love, because of your truth.
2 Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God? ”
3 Our God is in heaven
and does whatever he pleases.
4 Their idols are silver and gold,
made by human hands.
5 They have mouths but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears but cannot hear,
noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk.
They cannot make a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make them are just like them,
as are all who trust in them.
9 Israel, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and shield.
10 House of Aaron, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and shield.
11 You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord!
He is their help and shield.
12 The Lord remembers us and will bless us.
He will bless the house of Israel;
he will bless the house of Aaron;
13 he will bless those who fear the Lord —
small and great alike.
14 May the Lord add to your numbers,
both yours and your children’s.
15 May you be blessed by the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
16 The heavens are the Lord’s,
but the earth he has given to the human race.
17 It is not the dead who praise the Lord,
nor any of those descending into the silence of death.
18 But we will bless the Lord,
both now and forever.
Hallelujah!

— 2 Chronicles 5, 1 John 4, Nahum 3, Psalm 114-115 (CSB)