Day 684 of 730

¹How lovely are your dwellings, Lord of hosts!

²My soul longs, and even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

³Yes, the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, near your altars, Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.

⁴Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are always praising you. Selah.

⁵Blessed are those whose strength is in you; who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage.

⁶Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings.

⁷They go from strength to strength. Everyone of them appears before God in Zion.

⁸Lord, God of Hosts, hear my prayer. Listen, God of Jacob. Selah.

⁹Behold, God our shield, look at the face of your anointed.

¹⁰For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

¹¹For the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.

¹²Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you.

¹My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you;

²So as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;

³Yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding;

⁴If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures:

⁵then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.

⁶For the Lord gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

⁷He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity;

⁸that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his holy ones.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.

¹⁰For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,

¹²to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things;

¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

¹⁴who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil;

¹⁵who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths:

¹⁶To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words;

¹⁷who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God:

¹⁸for her house leads down to death, her paths to the dead.

¹⁹None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life:

²⁰that you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.

²²But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.