¹Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, “This is the thing which the Lᴏʀᴅ has commanded: ²If a man makes a vow to the Lᴏʀᴅ, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. ³“Or if a woman makes a vow to the Lᴏʀᴅ, and binds herself by some agreement while in her father’s house in her youth, ⁴and her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she has bound herself, and her father holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she has bound herself shall stand. ⁵But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the Lᴏʀᴅ will release her, because her father overruled her. ⁶“If indeed she takes a husband, while bound by her vows or by a rash utterance from her lips by which she bound herself, ⁷and her husband hears it, and makes no response to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her agreements by which she bound herself shall stand. ⁸But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the Lᴏʀᴅ will release her. ⁹“Also any vow of a widow or a divorced woman, by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her. ¹⁰“If she vowed in her husband’s house, or bound herself by an agreement with an oath, ¹¹and her husband heard it, and made no response to her and did not overrule her, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement by which she bound herself shall stand. ¹²But if her husband truly made them void on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded from her lips concerning her vows or concerning the agreement binding her, it shall not stand; her husband has made them void, and the Lᴏʀᴅ will release her. ¹³Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it, or her husband may make it void. ¹⁴Now if her husband makes no response whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all the agreements that bind her; he confirms them, because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them. ¹⁵But if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt.” ¹⁶These are the statutes which the Lᴏʀᴅ commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter in her youth in her father’s house.

¹A Contemplation of Asaph. O God, why have You cast us off forever? Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture? ²Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old, The tribe of Your inheritance, which You have redeemed— This Mount Zion where You have dwelt. ³Lift up Your feet to the perpetual desolations. The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary. ⁴Your enemies roar in the midst of Your meeting place; They set up their banners for signs. ⁵They seem like men who lift up Axes among the thick trees. ⁶And now they break down its carved work, all at once, With axes and hammers. ⁷They have set fire to Your sanctuary; They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name to the ground. ⁸They said in their hearts, “Let us destroy them altogether.” They have burned up all the meeting places of God in the land. ⁹We do not see our signs; There is no longer any prophet; Nor is there any among us who knows how long. ¹⁰O God, how long will the adversary reproach? Will the enemy blaspheme Your name forever? ¹¹Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand? Take it out of Your bosom and destroy them. ¹²For God is my King from of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth. ¹³You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea serpents in the waters. ¹⁴You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces, And gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness. ¹⁵You broke open the fountain and the flood; You dried up mighty rivers. ¹⁶The day is Yours, the night also is Yours; You have prepared the light and the sun. ¹⁷You have set all the borders of the earth; You have made summer and winter. ¹⁸Remember this, that the enemy has reproached, O Lᴏʀᴅ, And that a foolish people has blasphemed Your name. ¹⁹Oh, do not deliver the life of Your turtledove to the wild beast! Do not forget the life of Your poor forever. ²⁰Have respect to the covenant; For the dark places of the earth are full of the haunts of cruelty. ²¹Oh, do not let the oppressed return ashamed! Let the poor and needy praise Your name. ²²Arise, O God, plead Your own cause; Remember how the foolish man reproaches You daily. ²³Do not forget the voice of Your enemies; The tumult of those who rise up against You increases continually.

¹The burden against the Valley of Vision. What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops, ²You who are full of noise, A tumultuous city, a joyous city? Your slain men are not slain with the sword, Nor dead in battle. ³All your rulers have fled together; They are captured by the archers. All who are found in you are bound together; They have fled from afar. ⁴Therefore I said, “Look away from me, I will weep bitterly; Do not labor to comfort me Because of the plundering of the daughter of my people.” ⁵For it is a day of trouble and treading down and perplexity By the Lᴏʀᴅ God of hosts In the Valley of Vision— Breaking down the walls And of crying to the mountain. ⁶Elam bore the quiver With chariots of men and horsemen, And Kir uncovered the shield. ⁷It shall come to pass that your choicest valleys Shall be full of chariots, And the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate. ⁸He removed the protection of Judah. You looked in that day to the armor of the House of the Forest; ⁹You also saw the damage to the city of David, That it was great; And you gathered together the waters of the lower pool. ¹⁰You numbered the houses of Jerusalem, And the houses you broke down To fortify the wall. ¹¹You also made a reservoir between the two walls For the water of the old pool. But you did not look to its Maker, Nor did you have respect for Him who fashioned it long ago. ¹²And in that day the Lᴏʀᴅ God of hosts Called for weeping and for mourning, For baldness and for girding with sackcloth. ¹³But instead, joy and gladness, Slaying oxen and killing sheep, Eating meat and drinking wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” ¹⁴Then it was revealed in my hearing by the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts, “Surely for this iniquity there will be no atonement for you, Even to your death,” says the Lᴏʀᴅ God of hosts. ¹⁵Thus says the Lᴏʀᴅ God of hosts: “Go, proceed to this steward, To Shebna, who is over the house, and say: ¹⁶‘What have you here, and whom have you here, That you have hewn a sepulcher here, As he who hews himself a sepulcher on high, Who carves a tomb for himself in a rock? ¹⁷Indeed, the Lᴏʀᴅ will throw you away violently, O mighty man, And will surely seize you. ¹⁸He will surely turn violently and toss you like a ball Into a large country; There you shall die, and there your glorious chariots Shall be the shame of your master’s house. ¹⁹So I will drive you out of your office, And from your position he will pull you down. ²⁰‘Then it shall be in that day, That I will call My servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah; ²¹I will clothe him with your robe And strengthen him with your belt; I will commit your responsibility into his hand. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem And to the house of Judah. ²²The key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder; So he shall open, and no one shall shut; And he shall shut, and no one shall open. ²³I will fasten him as a peg in a secure place, And he will become a glorious throne to his father’s house. ²⁴‘They will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the posterity, all vessels of small quantity, from the cups to all the pitchers. ²⁵In that day,’ says the Lᴏʀᴅ of hosts, ‘the peg that is fastened in the secure place will be removed and be cut down and fall, and the burden that was on it will be cut off; for the Lᴏʀᴅ has spoken.’ ”

¹Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), ²that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, ³knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, ⁴and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, ⁶by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. ⁷But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. ⁸But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. ¹⁰But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. ¹¹Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, ¹²looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? ¹³Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. ¹⁴Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; ¹⁵and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, ¹⁶as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. ¹⁷You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; ¹⁸but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.