Deuteronomy 1:19–25 (NIV84)

¹⁹ Then, as the Lord our God commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites through all that vast and dreadful desert that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea. ²⁰ Then I said to you, “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. ²¹ See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the Lord, the God of your fathers, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” ²² Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.” ²³ The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe. ²⁴ They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and explored it. ²⁵ Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.”

Psalm 81:1–16 (NIV84)

¹ Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob! ² Begin the music, strike the tambourine, play the melodious harp and lyre. ³ Sound the ram’s horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our Feast; ⁴this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. ⁵ He established it as a statute for Joseph when he went out against Egypt, where we heard a language we did not understand. ⁶ He says, “I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket. ⁷ In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of a thundercloud; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah ⁸ “Hear, O my people, and I will warn you— if you would but listen to me, O Israel! ⁹ You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not bow down to an alien god. ¹⁰ I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. ¹¹ “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. ¹² So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. ¹³“If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, ¹⁴ how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! ¹⁵ Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. ¹⁶ But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Romans 1:18–32 (NIV84)

¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. ²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. ²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. ²⁸ Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.