Wednesday, November 5, 2025

¹Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who delights greatly in his commandments. ²His offspring will be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed. ⁴Light dawns in the darkness for the upright, gracious, merciful, and righteous. ⁵It is well with the man who deals graciously and lends. He will maintain his cause in judgment. ⁹He has dispersed, he has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. His horn will be exalted with honor.

²⁵Now great multitudes were going with him. He turned and said to them, ²⁶“If anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can’t be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever doesn’t bear his own cross and come after me, can’t be my disciple. ²⁸For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation and isn’t able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him, ³⁰saying, ‘This man began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ ³¹Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³²Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy and asks for conditions of peace. ³³So therefore, whoever of you who doesn’t renounce all that he has, he can’t be my disciple.