Week 937 · about 45 minutes
Nahum 3
Nahum 3 · Memory verse Nahum 3:18
Get the free weekly Sunday school and bedtime printable pack
For a parent or teacher. Children do not make accounts here. The pack is a week of printables, not a child profile.
Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (Nahum 3), the matching word search and answer key (Nahum 3 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a folded cloth
Hold a folded cloth. Read Nahum 3 in about four minutes, stopping at Nahum 3:18: “Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with Nahum 3?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
Nahum 3 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey doesn’t depart.” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, “Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.” Nahum 3 opens with these words: “Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey doesn’t depart.” The line to keep is Nahum 3:18: “Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.” Carry the word “shepherds” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is Nahum 3:18: “Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in Nahum 3? Then try this: Read “Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains,…” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through Nahum 3. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from Nahum 3:18. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from Nahum 3 and write Nahum 3:18 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
Nahum 3:18
“Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for Nahum 3. Help us remember Nahum 3:18 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.