Daily Readings - 24/08/2026

^144:1 Blessed be Yahweh, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle,

^144:2 my love, my bastion, my citadel, my saviour, I shelter behind him, my shield, he makes the nations submit to me.

^144:3 Yahweh, what is man, that you should notice him? A human being, that you should think about him?

^144:4 Man’s life, a mere puff of wind, his days, as fugitive as shadows.

^144:5 Yahweh, lower your heavens, come down to us! Touch the mountains, make them smoke,

^144:6 flash your lightning – scatter them, shoot your arrows – rout them.

^144:7 Reach down your hand from above, save me, rescue me from deep waters, from the power of aliens

^144:8 who tell nothing but lies, who are prepared to swear to falsehood!

^144:9 God, I have made a new song for you to be played on the ten-string lyre,

^144:10 you who give victory to kings and safety to your servant David. From peril of sword

^144:11 save me, rescue me from the power of aliens who tell nothing but lies, who are prepared to swear to falsehood!

^144:12 May our sons be like plants growing strong from their earliest days, our daughters like corner-statues,[*a] carvings fit for a palace;

^144:13 may our barns overflow with every possible crop, may the sheep in our fields be counted in their thousands and tens of thousands,

^144:14 may our cattle be stout and strong; and may there be an end of raids and exile, and of panic in our streets.

^144:15 Happy the nation of whom this is true, happy the nation whose God is Yahweh!

^1:45 Philip found Nathanael[*h] and said to him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, the one about whom the prophets wrote: he is Jesus son of Joseph, from Nazareth’.

^1:46 ‘From Nazareth?’ said Nathanael ‘Can anything good come from that place?’ ‘Come and see’ replied Philip.

^1:47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming he said of him, ‘There is an Israelite who deserves the name, incapable of deceit’.

^1:48 ‘How do you know me?’ said Nathanael ‘Before Philip came to call you,’ said Jesus ‘I saw you under the fig tree.’

^1:49 Nathanael answered, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel’.

^1:50 Jesus replied, ‘You believe that just because I said: I saw you under the fig tree. so You will see greater things than that.’

^1:51 And then he added ‘I tell you most solemnly, you will see heaven laid open and, above the Son of Man, the angels of God ascending and descending’.