Song for today: It Is Well With My Soul and Holy, Holy, Holy

Today’s country: Republic of Suriname

Praise the Lord, all nations!
Extol him, all peoples!
For great is his steadfast love toward us,
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!
from Psalm 117

Hear the word of the Lord, O children of Israel,
for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or steadfast love,
and no knowledge of God in the land;
there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery;
they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
Therefore the land mourns,
and all who dwell in it languish,
and also the beasts of the field
and the birds of the heavens,
and even the fish of the sea are taken away.
•••
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being priests
from Hosea 4

I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from me;
for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;
Israel is defiled.
Their deeds do not permit them
to return to their God.
For the spirit of whoredom is within them,
and they know not the Lord.
•••
I will return again to my place,
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face,
and in their distress earnestly seek me.
from Hosea 5

Come, let us return to the Lord;
for he has torn us, that he may heal us;
he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.”
•••
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
from Hosea 6