Daily Devotion and Prayer for October 10th

+ DAILY PRAYER +

Samson Defeats the Philistines15 After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a ?young goat?. He said, “I want to go to my wife’s private room.” But her father would not allow him to enter. Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her, so I gave her to your companion….

This Daily Devotion covers the first five books of the Bible, Genesis through Deuteronomy also called the Books of Moses or the Pentateuch, in a period of one year in a Monday through Friday format, the Psalms and order of devotion follow those presented in The Treasury of Daily Prayer from Concordia Publishing House.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

     Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my pleas for mercy!

     In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness! 

     Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan,

     and he hears my voice. 

     Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;

     He will never permit the righteous to be moved. 

Psalm 106:1-12

1  Praise the LORD! Oh give thanks to the LORD,

for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! 

2  Who can utter the mighty deeds of the LORD,

or declare all his praise? 

3  Blessed are they who observe justice,

who do righteousness at all times! 

4  Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor

to your people; help me when you save them, 

5  that I may look upon the prosperity of your chosen ones,

that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation,

that I may glory with your inheritance. 

6  Both we and our fathers have sinned;

we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness. 

7  Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,

did not consider your wondrous works;

they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,

but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. 

8  Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,

that he might make known his mighty power. 

9  He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry,

and he led them through the deep as through a desert. 

10  So he saved them from the hand of the foe

and redeemed them from the power of the enemy. 

11  And the waters covered their adversaries;

not one of them was left. 

12  Then they believed his words; they sang his praise. 

Reading for Tuesday October 10th         Judges 15

Samson Defeats the Philistines

15 After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a ?young goat?. He said, “I want to go to my wife’s private room.” But her father would not allow him to enter. Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please, ?take her instead?.” And Samson said to them, “This time, as far as the Philistines are concerned, when I do something evil I am without blame.” And Samson went and captured three hundred foxes, and he took torches. He turned them tail to tail, and he put one torch between two tails. He set fire to the torches and let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and he burned both the stacks of sheaves and the standing grain, up to the vineyards of olive groves. And the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” And the Philistines went up and burned her and her father with fire. Samson said to them, “If you want to behave like this, I swear I will not rest unless I have taken revenge on you.” And ?he gave them a thorough beating?, and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah, and they overran Lehi. 10 And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they said, “To bind Samson; to do to him just as he did to us.” 11 Then three thousand men from Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are ruling over us? What is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “Just as they did to me, so I have done to them.” 12 They said to him, “We have come down to bind you and give you over into the hand of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.” 13 They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hand; we will certainly not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes, and they brought him up from the rock.

14 As he came up to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the Spirit of Yahweh rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has burned with fire, and his bindings melted from his hands. 15 And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey; he reached down and took it and killed one thousand men with it. 16 And Samson said,

“With the jawbone of the donkey,

heap upon heap;

with the jawbone of the donkey,

I struck dead one thousand men.”

17 And it happened, when he finished speaking he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he called that place Ramath Lehi.

18 And he was very thirsty, and he called to Yahweh and said, “You gave this great victory into the hand of your servant, but now I must die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?” 19 So God split the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it; and he drank, and his spirit returned, and he was revived. Thus he called its name ?The Spring of Ha-Qore?, which is at Lehi to this day. 20 And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

Lord’s Prayer

Daily Prayer

     Gracious God, our heavenly Father, Your mercy attends us all our days.  Be our strength and support amid the wearisome changes of this world, and at life’s end grant us Your promised rest and the full joys of Your salvation; through Jesus Christ Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Concluding Prayer

Heavenly Father, send Your Holy Spirit into our hearts to direct and rule us according to Your will, to comfort us in all our afflictions, to defend us from all error, and to lead us into all truth; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

[1] W. Hall Harris III et al., eds., The Lexham English Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), Jdg 13:1–25.