Psalm 147:1-11, 20

147 Praise the Lord! Because it is good to sing praise to our God! Because it is a pleasure to make beautiful praise!

² The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem, gathering up Israel’s exiles. ³ God heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. ⁴ God counts the stars by number, giving each one a name. ⁵ Our Lord is great and so strong! God’s knowledge can’t be grasped! ⁶ The Lord helps the poor, but throws the wicked down on the dirt! ⁷ Sing to the Lord with thanks; sing praises to our God with a lyre! ⁸ God covers the skies with clouds; God makes rain for the earth; God makes the mountains sprout green grass. ⁹God gives food to the animals - even to the baby ravens when they cry out. ¹⁰ God doesn’t prize the strength of a horse; God doesn’t treasure the legs of a runner. ²⁰ God hasn’t done that with any other nation; those nations have no knowledge of God’s rules. Praise the Lord!

Isaiah 40:21-31

²¹ Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? Wasn’t it announced to you from the beginning? Haven’t you understood since the earth was founded? ²² God inhabits the earth’s horizon - its inhabitants are like locusts - stretches out the skies like a curtain and spreads it out like a tent for dwelling. ²³ God makes dignitaries useless and the earth’s judges into nothing. ²⁴ Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely is their shoot rooted in the earth when God breathes on them, and they dry up; the windstorm carries them off like straw. ²⁵ So to whom will you compare me, and who is my equal? says the holy one.

Power for the weary

²⁶ Look up at the sky and consider: Who created these? The one who brings out their attendants one by one, summoning each of them by name. Because of God’s great strength and mighty power, not one is missing. ²⁷ Why do you say, Jacob, and declare, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, my God ignores my predicament”? ²⁸ Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He doesn’t grow tired or weary. His understanding is beyond human reach, ²⁹ giving power to the tired and reviving the exhausted. ³⁰ Youths will become tired and weary, young men will certainly stumble; ³¹ but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will fly up on wings like eagles; they will run and not be tired; they will walk and not be weary.