Mercy and compassion

For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and sons will receive mercy in the presence of their captors and will return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful; He will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him.”

David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

¹⁶ O Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, I pray that Your anger and wrath may turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all around us.

¹⁷ So now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of Your servant. For Your sake, O Lord, cause Your face to shine upon Your desolate sanctuary.

¹⁸ Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion.

¹⁹ O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your name.”

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁸ How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

⁹ I will not execute the full fury of My anger; I will not turn back to destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not man— the Holy One among you— and I will not come in wrath.

⁷ “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will bring you back.

⁸ In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer.

⁹ “For to Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you or rebuke you.

¹⁰ Though the mountains may be removed and the hills may be shaken, My loving devotion will not depart from you, and My covenant of peace will not be broken,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

For judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and He could no longer bear the misery of Israel.

So he prayed to the LORD, saying, “O LORD, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I was so quick to flee toward Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion—One who relents from sending disaster.

¹⁰ But the LORD said, “You cared about the plant, which you neither tended nor made grow. It sprang up in a night and perished in a night.

¹¹ So should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well?”

¹⁷ They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them.

¹⁸ Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies,

¹⁹ You in Your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud never turned away from guiding them on their path; and by the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go.

²⁷ So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

²⁸ But as soon as they had rest, they again did evil in Your sight. So You abandoned them to the hands of their enemies, who had dominion over them. When they cried out to You again, You heard from heaven, and You delivered them many times in Your compassion.

²⁹ You admonished them to turn back to Your law, but they were arrogant and disobeyed Your commandments. They sinned against Your ordinances, by which a man will live if he practices them. They stubbornly shrugged their shoulders; they stiffened their necks and would not obey.

³⁰ You were patient with them for many years, and Your Spirit admonished them through Your prophets. Yet they would not listen, so You gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples.

³¹ But in Your great compassion, You did not put an end to them; nor did You forsake them, for You are a gracious and compassionate God.

Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy, for we have endured much contempt.

David answered Gad, “I am deeply distressed. Please, let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are very great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”

“Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity during his days, but I will bring it upon his house in the days of his son.”

I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man; yet because I had acted in ignorance and unbelief, I was shown mercy.

Then the men who were designated by name arose, took charge of the captives, and provided from the plunder clothing for the naked. They clothed them, gave them sandals and food and drink, anointed their wounds, and put all the feeble on donkeys. So they brought them to Jericho, the City of Palms, to their brothers. Then they returned to Samaria.

And when he prayed to Him, the LORD received his plea and heard his petition; so He brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD is God.

For surely we will die and be like water poured out on the ground, which cannot be recovered. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises ways that the banished one may not be cast out from Him.

To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, even though we have rebelled against Him

⁹ Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish.”

¹⁰ When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.

When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said, “Do not weep.”

Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!”

⁷ Now Ebed-melech the Cushite, a court official in the royal palace, heard that Jeremiah had been put into the cistern. While the king was sitting at the Gate of Benjamin,

⁸ Ebed-melech went out from the king’s palace and said to the king,

⁹ “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have dropped him into the cistern, where he will starve to death, for there is no more bread in the city.”

¹⁰ So the king commanded Ebed-melech the Cushite, “Take thirty men from here with you and pull Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”

¹¹ Then Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to the king’s palace, to a place below the storehouse. From there he took old rags and worn-out clothes and lowered them with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern.

¹² Ebed-melech the Cushite cried out to Jeremiah, “Put these worn-out rags and clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah did so,

¹³ and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.

Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.

³⁰ Jesus took up this question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

³¹ Now by chance a priest was going down the same road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

³² So too, when a Levite came to that spot and saw him, he passed by on the other side.

³³ But when a Samaritan on a journey came upon him, he looked at him and had compassion.

³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Take care of him,’ he said, ‘and on my return I will repay you for any additional expense.’

Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

When He stepped ashore and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Then Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, “I have compassion for this crowd, because they have already been with Me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may faint along the way.”

²⁷ His master had compassion on him, forgave his debt, and released him.

²⁸ But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe me!’

³⁰ And there were two blind men sitting beside the road. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

³¹ The crowd admonished them to be silent, but they cried out all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

³² Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want Me to do for you?” He asked.

³³ “Lord,” they answered, “let our eyes be opened.”

³⁴ Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes, and at once they received their sight and followed Him.

When Jesus stepped ashore and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things.

² “I have compassion for this crowd, because they have already been with Me three days and have nothing to eat.

³ If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a great distance.”

Then Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?”

A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish, till He leads justice to victory.

May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he has often refreshed me and was unashamed of my chains.

But when Lot hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters. And they led them safely out of the city, because of the LORD’s compassion for them.

Did Hezekiah king of Judah or anyone else in Judah put him to death? Did Hezekiah not fear the LORD and seek His favor, and did not the LORD relent of the disaster He had pronounced against them? But we are about to bring great harm on ourselves!”

When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your disability.”

And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word that the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.”