8 Let me experience Your faithful love in the morning, for I trust in You. Reveal to me the way I should go because I long for You.
Psalm 143:8 (HCSB)
1 The words of Agur son of Jakeh. The oracle. The man’s oration to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal:
2 I am more stupid than any other man, and I lack man’s ability to understand.
3 I have not gained wisdom, and I have no knowledge of the Holy One.
4 Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in His hands? Who has bound up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is the name of His Son — if you know?
5 Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
6 Don’t add to His words, or He will rebuke you, and you will be proved a liar.
7 Two things I ask of You; don’t deny them to me before I die:
8 Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me. Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need.
9 Otherwise, I might have too much and deny You, saying, “Who is the Lord?” or I might have nothing and steal, profaning the name of my God.
10 Don’t slander a servant to his master or he will curse you, and you will become guilty.
11 There is a generation that curses its father and does not bless its mother.
12 There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, yet is not washed from its filth.
13 There is a generation—how haughty its eyes and pretentious its looks.
14 There is a generation whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, devouring the oppressed from the land and the needy from among mankind.
15 The leech has two daughters: “Give, Give!” Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough!”:
16 Sheol; a childless womb; earth, which is never satisfied with water; and fire, which never says, “Enough!”
17 As for the eye that ridicules a father and despises obedience to a mother, may ravens of the valley pluck it out and young vultures eat it.
18 Three things are beyond me; four I can’t understand:
19 the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship at sea, and the way of a man with a young woman.
20 This is the way of an adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
21 The earth trembles under three things; it cannot bear up under four:
22 a servant when he becomes king, a fool when he is stuffed with food,
23 an unloved woman when she marries, and a servant girl when she ousts her queen.
24 Four things on earth are small, yet they are extremely wise:
25 the ants are not a strong people, yet they store up their food in the summer;
26 hyraxes are not a mighty people, yet they make their homes in the cliffs;
27 locusts have no king, yet all of them march in ranks;
28 a lizard can be caught in your hands, yet it lives in kings’ palaces.
29 Three things are stately in their stride, even four are stately in their walk:
30 a lion, which is mightiest among beasts and doesn’t retreat before anything,
31 a strutting rooster, a goat, and a king at the head of his army.
32 If you have been foolish by exalting yourself or if you’ve been scheming, put your hand over your mouth.
33 For the churning of milk produces butter, and twisting a nose draws blood, and stirring up anger produces strife.
Proverbs 30:1-33 (HCSB)
1 Now as they were speaking to the people, the priests, the commander of the temple police, and the Sadducees confronted them,
2 because they were provoked that they were teaching the people and proclaiming the resurrection from the dead, using Jesus as the example.
3 So they seized them and put them in custody until the next day, since it was already evening.
4 But many of those who heard the message believed, and the number of the men came to about 5,000.
5 The next day, their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem
6 with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John and Alexander, and all the members of the high-priestly family.
7 After they had Peter and John stand before them, they asked the question: “By what power or in what name have you done this?”
8 Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders:
9 If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man—by what means he was healed—
10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead—by Him this man is standing here before you healthy.
11 This Jesus is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone.
12 There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be saved by it.”
13 When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus.
14 And since they saw the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in response.
15 After they had ordered them to leave the Sanhedrin, they conferred among themselves,
16 saying, “What should we do with these men? For an obvious sign, evident to all who live in Jerusalem, has been done through them, and we cannot deny it!
17 However, so this does not spread any further among the people, let’s threaten them against speaking to anyone in this name again.”
18 So they called for them and ordered them not to preach or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it’s right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide;
20 for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
Acts 4:1-20 (HCSB)
6 And if He reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them to ruin, making them an example to those who were going to be ungodly;
7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, distressed by the unrestrained behavior of the immoral
8 (for as he lived among them, that righteous man tormented himself day by day with the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—
9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,
10 especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority.
2 Peter 2:6-10 (HCSB)
19 We love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19 (HCSB)