Luke 18:1–2

²Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;

¹²Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;

¹⁷Pray without ceasing.

⁶Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

¹⁸Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

¹⁶As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me.

¹⁷Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.

¹²Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.

³⁶Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

⁹And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

³Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily.

¹⁷He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.

⁵And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves;

⁶For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?

⁷And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.

⁸I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.

⁹And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

¹THEREFORE seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;

⁵I cried unto thee, O Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.

⁶Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I.

⁷Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.

¹²Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

²⁴¶ And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

²⁵And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.

²⁶And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

⁷When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.

²O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.

¹³I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

⁹¶ And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee:

¹⁰I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands.

¹¹Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.

¹²And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

³For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

⁴Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

⁵And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

⁸For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul?

⁹Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?

¹⁰Will he delight himself in the Almighty? will he always call upon God?

⁴And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;

⁷The righteous considereth the cause of the poor: but the wicked regardeth not to know it.

¹O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

²Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

³When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

⁴What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

⁶Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.

⁷In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

⁸Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths.

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord.

¹⁷But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.

³Nevertheless there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God.

⁴And Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem: and he went out again through the people from Beer-sheba to mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers.

⁵¶ And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city,

⁶And said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment.

⁷Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.

⁸¶ Moreover in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites, and of the priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel, for the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies, when they returned to Jerusalem.

⁹And he charged them, saying, Thus shall ye do in the fear of the Lord, faithfully, and with a perfect heart.

⁷When I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street!

⁸The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up.

⁹The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth.

¹⁰The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.

¹¹When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me:

¹²Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.

¹³The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.

¹⁴I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.

¹⁶I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.

¹⁷And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.

¹AND I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment?

²Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

³Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

¹⁴Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

¹⁵Their feet are swift to shed blood:

¹⁶Destruction and misery are in their ways:

¹⁷And the way of peace have they not known:

¹⁸There is no fear of God before their eyes.

²¹Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:

²²And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.

⁸The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man.