Daily "Read Through the Bible" Day 99

Deuteronomy 33:1-29

1-5Moses, man of God, blessed the People of Israel with this blessing before his death. He said,

God came down from Sinai,

he dawned from Seir upon them;

He radiated light from Mount Paran,

coming with ten thousand holy angels

And tongues of fire

streaming from his right hand.

Oh, how you love the people,

all his holy ones are palmed in your left hand.

They sit at your feet,

honoring your teaching,

The Revelation commanded by Moses,

as the assembly of Jacob’s inheritance.

Thus God became king in Jeshurun

as the leaders and tribes of Israel gathered.

6Reuben:

“Let Reuben live and not die,

but just barely, in diminishing numbers.”

7Judah:

“Listen, God, to the Voice of Judah,

bring him to his people;

Strengthen his grip,

be his helper against his foes.”

8-11Levi:

“Let your Thummim and Urim

belong to your loyal saint;

The one you tested at Massah,

whom you fought with at the Waters of Meribah,

Who said of his father and mother,

‘I no longer recognize them.’

He turned his back on his brothers

and neglected his children,

Because he was guarding your sayings

and watching over your Covenant.

Let him teach your rules to Jacob

and your Revelation to Israel,

Let him keep the incense rising to your nostrils

and the Whole-Burnt-Offerings on your Altar.

God bless his commitment,

stamp your seal of approval on what he does;

Disable the loins of those who defy him,

make sure we’ve heard the last from those who hate him.”

12Benjamin:

“God’s beloved;

God’s permanent residence.

Encircled by God all day long,

within whom God is at home.”

13-17Joseph:

“Blessed by God be his land:

The best fresh dew from high heaven,

and fountains springing from the depths;

The best radiance streaming from the sun

and the best the moon has to offer;

Beauty pouring off the tops of the mountains

and the best from the everlasting hills;

The best of Earth’s exuberant gifts,

the smile of the Burning-Bush Dweller.

All this on the head of Joseph,

on the brow of the consecrated one among his brothers.

In splendor he’s like a firstborn bull,

his horns the horns of a wild ox;

He’ll gore the nations with those horns,

push them all to the ends of the Earth.

Ephraim by the ten thousands will do this,

Manasseh by the thousands will do this.”

18-19Zebulun and Issachar:

“Celebrate, Zebulun, as you go out,

and Issachar, as you stay home.

They’ll invite people to the Mountain

and offer sacrifices of right worship,

For they will have hauled riches in from the sea

and gleaned treasures from the beaches.”

20-21Gad:

“Blessed is he who makes Gad large.

Gad roams like a lion,

tears off an arm, rips open a skull.

He took one look and grabbed the best place for himself,

the portion just made for someone in charge.

He took his place at the head,

carried out God’s right ways

and his rules for life in Israel.”

22Dan:

“Dan is a lion’s cub

leaping out of Bashan.”

23Naphtali:

“Naphtali brims with blessings,

spills over with God’s blessings

As he takes possession

of the sea and southland.”

24-25Asher:

“Asher, best blessed of the sons!

May he be the favorite of his brothers,

his feet massaged in oil.

Safe behind iron-clad doors and gates,

your strength like iron as long as you live.”

26-28There is none like God, Jeshurun,

riding to your rescue through the skies,

his dignity haloed by clouds.

The ancient God is home

on a foundation of everlasting arms.

He drove out the enemy before you

and commanded, “Destroy!”

Israel lived securely,

the fountain of Jacob undisturbed

In grain and wine country

and, oh yes, his heavens drip dew.

29Lucky Israel! Who has it as good as you?

A people saved by God!

The Shield who defends you,

the Sword who brings triumph.

Your enemies will come crawling on their bellies

and you’ll march on their backs.

Luke 13:1-21

1-5About that time some people came up and told him about the Galileans Pilate had killed while they were at worship, mixing their blood with the blood of the sacrifices on the altar. Jesus responded, “Do you think those murdered Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans? Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you, too, will die. And those eighteen in Jerusalem the other day, the ones crushed and killed when the Tower of Siloam collapsed and fell on them, do you think they were worse citizens than all other Jerusalemites? Not at all. Unless you turn to God, you, too, will die.”

6-7Then he told them a story: “A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren’t any. He said to his gardener, ‘What’s going on here? For three years now I’ve come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?’

8-9“The gardener said, ‘Let’s give it another year. I’ll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn’t, then chop it down.’”

Healing on the Sabbath

10-13He was teaching in one of the meeting places on the Sabbath. There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up. She had been afflicted with this for eighteen years. When Jesus saw her, he called her over. “Woman, you’re free!” He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and tall, giving glory to God.

14The meeting-place president, furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation, “Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath.”

15-16But Jesus shot back, “You frauds! Each Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it. So why isn’t it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?”

17When he put it that way, his critics were left looking quite silly and red-faced. The congregation was delighted and cheered him on.

The Way to God

18-19Then he said, “How can I picture God’s kingdom for you? What kind of story can I use? It’s like a pine nut that a man plants in his front yard. It grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches, and eagles build nests in it.”

20-21He tried again. “How can I picture God’s kingdom? It’s like yeast that a woman works into enough dough for three loaves of bread—and waits while the dough rises.”

Psalm 78:65-72

65-72Suddenly the Lord was up on his feet

like someone roused from deep sleep,

shouting like a drunken warrior.

He hit his enemies hard, sent them running,

yelping, not daring to look back.

He disqualified Joseph as leader,

told Ephraim he didn’t have what it takes,

And chose the Tribe of Judah instead,

Mount Zion, which he loves so much.

He built his sanctuary there, resplendent,

solid and lasting as the earth itself.

Then he chose David, his servant,

handpicked him from his work in the sheep pens.

One day he was caring for the ewes and their lambs,

the next day God had him shepherding Jacob,

his people Israel, his prize possession.

His good heart made him a good shepherd;

he guided the people wisely and well.

Proverbs 12:25

25Worry weighs us down; a cheerful word picks us up.

Daily "Read Through the Bible" Day 98

Deuteronomy 32:28-52

28-33They are a nation of ninnies,

they don’t know enough to come in out of the rain.

If they had any sense at all, they’d know this;

they would see what’s coming down the road.

How could one soldier chase a thousand enemies off,

or two men run off two thousand,

Unless their Rock had sold them,

unless God had given them away?

For their rock is nothing compared to our Rock;

even our enemies say that.

They’re a vine that comes right out of Sodom,

who they are is rooted in Gomorrah;

Their grapes are poison grapes,

their grape-clusters bitter.

Their wine is rattlesnake venom,

mixed with lethal cobra poison.

34-35Don’t you realize that I have my shelves

well stocked, locked behind iron doors?

I’m in charge of vengeance and payback,

just waiting for them to slip up;

And the day of their doom is just around the corner,

sudden and swift and sure.

36-38Yes, God will judge his people,

but oh how compassionately he’ll do it.

When he sees their weakened plight

and there is no one left, slave or free,

He’ll say, “So where are their gods,

the rock in which they sought refuge,

The gods who feasted on the fat of their sacrifices

and drank the wine of their drink-offerings?

Let them show their stuff and help you,

let them give you a hand!

39-42“Do you see it now? Do you see that I’m the one?

Do you see that there’s no other god beside me?

I bring death and I give life, I wound and I heal—

there is no getting away from or around me!

I raise my hand in solemn oath;

I say, ‘I’m always around. By that very life I promise:

When I sharpen my lightning sword

and execute judgment,

I take vengeance on my enemies

and pay back those who hate me.

I’ll make my arrows drunk with blood,

my sword will gorge itself on flesh,

Feasting on slain and captive alike,

the proud and vain enemy corpses.’”

43Celebrate, nations, join the praise of his people.

He avenges the deaths of his servants,

Pays back his enemies with vengeance,

and cleanses his land for his people.

44-47Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun. When Moses had finished saying all these words to all Israel, he said, “Take to heart all these words to which I give witness today and urgently command your children to put them into practice, every single word of this Revelation. Yes. This is no small matter for you; it’s your life. In keeping this word you’ll have a good and long life in this land that you’re crossing the Jordan to possess.”

48-50That same day God spoke to Moses: “Climb the Abarim Mountains to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, overlooking Jericho, and view the land of Canaan that I’m giving the People of Israel to have and hold. Die on the mountain that you climb and join your people in the ground, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and joined his people.

51-52“This is because you broke faith with me in the company of the People of Israel at the Waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin—you didn’t honor my Holy Presence in the company of the People of Israel. You’ll look at the land spread out before you but you won’t enter it, this land that I am giving to the People of Israel.”

Luke 12:35-59

35-38“Keep your shirts on; keep the lights on! Be like house servants waiting for their master to come back from his honeymoon, awake and ready to open the door when he arrives and knocks. Lucky the servants whom the master finds on watch! He’ll put on an apron, sit them at the table, and serve them a meal, sharing his wedding feast with them. It doesn’t matter what time of the night he arrives; they’re awake—and so blessed!

39-40“You know that if the house owner had known what night the burglar was coming, he wouldn’t have stayed out late and left the place unlocked. So don’t you be slovenly and careless. Just when you don’t expect him, the Son of Man will show up.”

41Peter said, “Master, are you telling this story just for us? Or is it for everybody?”

42-46The Master said, “Let me ask you: Who is the dependable manager, full of common sense, that the master puts in charge of his staff to feed them well and on time? He is a blessed man if when the master shows up he’s doing his job. But if he says to himself, ‘The master is certainly taking his time,’ begins maltreating the servants and maids, throws parties for his friends, and gets drunk, the master will walk in when he least expects it, give him the thrashing of his life, and put him back in the kitchen peeling potatoes.

47-48“The servant who knows what his master wants and ignores it, or insolently does whatever he pleases, will be thoroughly thrashed. But if he does a poor job through ignorance, he’ll get off with a slap on the hand. Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!

To Start a Fire

49-53“I’ve come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything rightside up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront! From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be—

Three against two,

and two against three;

Father against son,

and son against father;

Mother against daughter,

and daughter against mother;

Mother-in-law against bride,

and bride against mother-in-law.”

54-56Then he turned to the crowd: “When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, ‘Storm’s coming’—and you’re right. And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, ‘This’ll be a hot one’—and you’re right. Frauds! You know how to tell a change in the weather, so don’t tell me you can’t tell a change in the season, the God-season we’re in right now.

57-59“You don’t have to be a genius to understand these things. Just use your common sense, the kind you’d use if, while being taken to court, you decided to settle up with your accuser on the way, knowing that if the case went to the judge you’d probably go to jail and pay every last penny of the fine. That’s the kind of decision I’m asking you to make.”

Psalm 78:56-64

56-64But they kept on giving him a hard time,

rebelled against God, the High God,

refused to do anything he told them.

They were worse, if that’s possible, than their parents:

traitors—crooked as a corkscrew.

Their pagan orgies provoked God’s anger,

their obscene idolatries broke his heart.

When God heard their carryings-on, he was furious;

he posted a huge No over Israel.

He walked off and left Shiloh empty,

abandoned the shrine where he had met with Israel.

He let his pride and joy go to the dogs,

turned his back on the pride of his life.

He turned them loose on fields of battle;

angry, he let them fend for themselves.

Their young men went to war and never came back;

their young women waited in vain.

Their priests were massacred,

and their widows never shed a tear.

Proverbs 12:24

24The diligent find freedom in their work;

the lazy are oppressed by work.

Daily "Read Through the Bible" Day 97

Deuteronomy 31:1-30

1-2Moses went on and addressed these words to all Israel. He said, “I’m 120 years old today. I can’t get about as I used to. And God told me, ‘You’re not going to cross this Jordan River.’

3-5“God, your God, will cross the river ahead of you and destroy the nations in your path so that you may dispossess them. (And Joshua will cross the river before you, as God said he would.) God will give the nations the same treatment he gave the kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and their land; he’ll destroy them. God will hand the nations over to you, and you’ll treat them exactly as I have commanded you.

6“Be strong. Take courage. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t give them a second thought because God, your God, is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave you.”

7-8Then Moses summoned Joshua. He said to him with all Israel watching, “Be strong. Take courage. You will enter the land with this people, this land that God promised their ancestors that he’d give them. You will make them the proud possessors of it. God is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave you. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t worry.”

9-13Moses wrote out this Revelation and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Chest of the Covenant of God, and to all the leaders of Israel. And he gave these orders: “At the end of every seven years, the Year-All-Debts-Are-Canceled, during the pilgrim Festival of Booths when everyone in Israel comes to appear in the Presence of God, your God, at the place he designates, read out this Revelation to all Israel, with everyone listening. Gather the people together—men, women, children, and the foreigners living among you—so they can listen well, so they may learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, and diligently keep everything in this Revelation. And do this so that their children, who don’t yet know all this, will also listen and learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, for as long as you live on the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.”

14-15God spoke to Moses: “You are about to die. So call Joshua. Meet me in the Tent of Meeting so that I can commission him.”

So Moses and Joshua went and stationed themselves in the Tent of Meeting. God appeared in the Tent in a Pillar of Cloud. The Cloud was near the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.

16-18God spoke to Moses: “You’re about to die and be buried with your ancestors. You’ll no sooner be in the grave than this people will be up and whoring after the foreign gods of this country that they are entering. They will abandon me and violate my Covenant that I’ve made with them. I’ll get angry, oh so angry! I’ll walk off and leave them on their own, won’t so much as look back at them. Then many calamities and disasters will devastate them because they are defenseless. They’ll say, ‘Isn’t it because our God wasn’t here that all this evil has come upon us?’ But I’ll stay out of their lives, keep looking the other way because of all their evil: they took up with other gods!

19-21“But for right now, copy down this song and teach the People of Israel to sing it by heart. They’ll have it then as my witness against them. When I bring them into the land that I promised to their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they eat and become full and get fat and then begin fooling around with other gods and worshiping them, and then things start falling apart, many terrible things happening, this song will be there with them as a witness to who they are and what went wrong. Their children won’t forget this song; they’ll be singing it. Don’t think I don’t know what they are already scheming to do, and they’re not even in the land yet, this land I promised them.”

22So Moses wrote down this song that very day and taught it to the People of Israel.

23Then God commanded Joshua son of Nun saying, “Be strong. Take courage. You will lead the People of Israel into the land I promised to give them. And I’ll be right there with you.”

24-26After Moses had finished writing down the words of this Revelation in a book, right down to the last word, he ordered the Levites who were responsible for carrying the Chest of the Covenant of God, saying, “Take this Book of Revelation and place it alongside the Chest of the Covenant of God, your God. Keep it there as a witness.

27-29“I know what rebels you are, how stubborn and willful you can be. Even today, while I’m still alive and present with you, you’re rebellious against God. How much worse when I’ve died! So gather the leaders of the tribes and the officials here. I have something I need to say directly to them with Heaven and Earth as witnesses. I know that after I die you’re going to make a mess of things, abandoning the way I commanded, inviting all kinds of evil consequences in the days ahead. You’re determined to do evil in defiance of God—I know you are—deliberately provoking his anger by what you do.”

30So with everyone in Israel gathered and listening, Moses taught them the words of this song, from start to finish.

Deuteronomy 32:1-27

1-5Listen, Heavens, I have something to tell you.

Attention, Earth, I’ve got a mouth full of words.

My teaching, let it fall like a gentle rain,

my words arrive like morning dew,

Like a sprinkling rain on new grass,

like spring showers on the garden.

For it’s God’s Name I’m preaching—

respond to the greatness of our God!

The Rock: His works are perfect,

and the way he works is fair and just;

A God you can depend upon, no exceptions,

a straight-arrow God.

His messed-up, mixed-up children, his non-children,

throw mud at him but none of it sticks.

6-7Don’t you realize it is God you are treating like this?

This is crazy; don’t you have any sense of reverence?

Isn’t this your father who created you,

who made you and gave you a place on Earth?

Read up on what happened before you were born;

dig into the past, understand your roots.

Ask your parents what it was like before you were born;

ask the old-ones, they’ll tell you a thing or two.

8-9When the High God gave the nations their stake,

gave them their place on Earth,

He put each of the peoples within boundaries

under the care of divine guardians.

But God himself took charge of his people,

took Jacob on as his personal concern.

10-14He found him out in the wilderness,

in an empty, windswept wasteland.

He threw his arms around him, lavished attention on him,

guarding him as the apple of his eye.

He was like an eagle hovering over its nest,

overshadowing its young,

Then spreading its wings, lifting them into the air,

teaching them to fly.

God alone led him;

there was not a foreign god in sight.

God lifted him onto the hilltops,

so he could feast on the crops in the fields.

He fed him honey from the rock,

oil from granite crags,

Curds of cattle and the milk of sheep,

the choice cuts of lambs and goats,

Fine Bashan rams, high-quality wheat,

and the blood of grapes: you drank good wine!

15-18Jeshurun put on weight and bucked;

you got fat, became obese, a tub of lard.

He abandoned the God who made him,

he mocked the Rock of his salvation.

They made him jealous with their foreign newfangled gods,

and with obscenities they vexed him no end.

They sacrificed to no-god demons,

gods they knew nothing about,

The latest in gods, fresh from the market,

gods your ancestors would never call “gods.”

You walked out on the Rock who gave you your life,

forgot the birth-God who brought you into the world.

19-25God saw it and turned on his heel,

angered and hurt by his sons and daughters.

He said, “From now on I’m looking the other way.

Wait and see what happens to them.

Oh, they’re a turned-around, upside-down generation!

Who knows what they’ll do from one moment to the next?

They’ve goaded me with their no-gods,

infuriated me with their hot-air gods;

I’m going to goad them with a no-people,

with a hollow nation incense them.

My anger started a fire,

a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol,

Then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops,

setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire.

I’ll pile catastrophes on them,

I’ll shoot my arrows at them:

Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease;

I’ll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest

and venomous creatures to strike from the dust.

Killing in the streets,

terror in the houses,

Young men and virgins alike struck down,

and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men.”

26-27I could have said, “I’ll hack them to pieces,

wipe out all trace of them from the Earth,”

Except that I feared the enemy would grab the chance

to take credit for all of it,

Crowing, “Look what we did!

God had nothing to do with this.”

Luke 12:8-34

8-9“Stand up for me among the people you meet and the Son of Man will stand up for you before all God’s angels. But if you pretend you don’t know me, do you think I’ll defend you before God’s angels?

10“If you bad-mouth the Son of Man out of misunderstanding or ignorance, that can be overlooked. But if you’re knowingly attacking God himself, taking aim at the Holy Spirit, that won’t be overlooked.

11-12“When they drag you into their meeting places, or into police courts and before judges, don’t worry about defending yourselves—what you’ll say or how you’ll say it. The right words will be there. The Holy Spirit will give you the right words when the time comes.”

The Story of the Greedy Farmer

13Someone out of the crowd said, “Teacher, order my brother to give me a fair share of the family inheritance.”

14He replied, “Mister, what makes you think it’s any of my business to be a judge or mediator for you?”

15Speaking to the people, he went on, “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”

16-19Then he told them this story: “The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: ‘What can I do? My barn isn’t big enough for this harvest.’ Then he said, ‘Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll gather in all my grain and goods, and I’ll say to myself, Self, you’ve done well! You’ve got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!’

20“Just then God showed up and said, ‘Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?’

21“That’s what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”

Steep Yourself in God-Reality

22-24He continued this subject with his disciples. “Don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or if the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your inner life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more.

25-28“Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can’t even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don’t fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

29-32“What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.

33-34“Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can’t go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.

Psalm 78:32-55

32-37And—can you believe it?—they kept right on sinning;

all those wonders and they still wouldn’t believe!

So their lives dribbled off to nothing—

nothing to show for their lives but a ghost town.

When he cut them down, they came running for help;

they turned and pled for mercy.

They gave witness that God was their rock,

that High God was their redeemer,

But they didn’t mean a word of it;

they lied through their teeth the whole time.

They could not have cared less about him,

wanted nothing to do with his Covenant.

38-55And God? Compassionate!

Forgave the sin! Didn’t destroy!

Over and over he reined in his anger,

restrained his considerable wrath.

He knew what they were made of;

he knew there wasn’t much to them,

How often in the desert they had spurned him,

tried his patience in those wilderness years.

Time and again they pushed him to the limit,

provoked Israel’s Holy God.

How quickly they forgot what he’d done,

forgot their day of rescue from the enemy,

When he did miracles in Egypt,

wonders on the plain of Zoan.

He turned the River and its streams to blood—

not a drop of water fit to drink.

He sent flies, which ate them alive,

and frogs, which bedeviled them.

He turned their harvest over to caterpillars,

everything they had worked for to the locusts.

He flattened their grapevines with hail;

a killing frost ruined their orchards.

He pounded their cattle with hail,

let thunderbolts loose on their herds.

His anger flared,

a wild firestorm of havoc,

An advance guard of disease-carrying angels

to clear the ground, preparing the way before him.

He didn’t spare those people,

he let the plague rage through their lives.

He killed all the Egyptian firstborns,

lusty infants, offspring of Ham’s virility.

Then he led his people out like sheep,

took his flock safely through the wilderness.

He took good care of them; they had nothing to fear.

The Sea took care of their enemies for good.

He brought them into his holy land,

this mountain he claimed for his own.

He scattered everyone who got in their way;

he staked out an inheritance for them—

the tribes of Israel all had their own places.

Proverbs 12:21-23

21No evil can overwhelm a good person,

but the wicked have their hands full of it.

22God can’t stomach liars;

he loves the company of those who keep their word.

23Prudent people don’t flaunt their knowledge;

talkative fools broadcast their silliness.

Daily "Read Through the Bible" Day 96

Deuteronomy 29:1-29

1These are the terms of the Covenant that God commanded Moses to make with the People of Israel in the land of Moab, renewing the Covenant he made with them at Horeb.
Moses Blesses Israel on the Plains of Moab
2-4Moses called all Israel together and said, You’ve seen with your own eyes everything that God did in Egypt to Pharaoh and his servants, and to the land itself—the massive trials to which you were eyewitnesses, the great signs and miracle-wonders. But God didn’t give you an understanding heart or perceptive eyes or attentive ears until right now, this very day.
5-6I took you through the wilderness for forty years and through all that time the clothes on your backs didn’t wear out, the sandals on your feet didn’t wear out, and you lived well without bread and wine and beer, proving to you that I am in fact God, your God.
7-8When you arrived here in this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan met us primed for war but we beat them. We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
9Diligently keep the words of this Covenant. Do what they say so that you will live well and wisely in every detail.
10-13You are all standing here today in the Presence of God, your God—the heads of your tribes, your leaders, your officials, all Israel: your babies, your wives, the resident foreigners in your camps who fetch your firewood and water—ready to cross over into the solemnly sworn Covenant that God, your God, is making with you today, the Covenant that this day confirms that you are his people and he is God, your God, just as he promised you and your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
14-21I’m not making this Covenant and its oath with you alone. I am making it with you who are standing here today in the Presence of God, our God, yes, but also with those who are not here today. You know the conditions in which we lived in Egypt and how we crisscrossed through nations in our travels. You got an eyeful of their obscenities, their wood and stone, silver and gold junk-gods. Don’t let down your guard lest even now, today, someone—man or woman, clan or tribe—gets sidetracked from God, our God, and gets involved with the no-gods of the nations; lest some poisonous weed sprout and spread among you, a person who hears the words of the Covenant-oath but exempts himself, thinking, “I’ll live just the way I please, thank you,” and ends up ruining life for everybody. God won’t let him off the hook. God’s anger and jealousy will erupt like a volcano against that person. The curses written in this book will bury him. God will delete his name from the records. God will separate him out from all the tribes of Israel for special punishment, according to all the curses of the Covenant written in this Book of Revelation.
22-23The next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a far country, will be appalled when they see the widespread devastation, how God made the whole land sick. They’ll see a fire-blackened wasteland of brimstone and salt flats, nothing planted, nothing growing, not so much as a blade of grass anywhere—like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which God overthrew in fiery rage.
24All the nations will ask, “Why did God do this to this country? What on earth could have made him this angry?”
25-28Your children will answer, “Because they abandoned the Covenant of the God of their ancestors that he made with them after he got them out of Egypt; they went off and worshiped other gods, submitted to gods they’d never heard of before, gods they had no business dealing with. So God’s anger erupted against that land and all the curses written in this book came down on it. God, furiously angry, pulled them, roots and all, out of their land and dumped them in another country, as you can see.”
29God, our God, will take care of the hidden things but the revealed things are our business. It’s up to us and our children to attend to all the terms in this Revelation.

Deuteronomy 30:1-20

1-5Here’s what will happen. While you’re out among the nations where God has dispersed you and the blessings and curses come in just the way I have set them before you, and you and your children take them seriously and come back to God, your God, and obey him with your whole heart and soul according to everything that I command you today, God, your God, will restore everything you lost; he’ll have compassion on you; he’ll come back and pick up the pieces from all the places where you were scattered. No matter how far away you end up, God, your God, will get you out of there and bring you back to the land your ancestors once possessed. It will be yours again. He will give you a good life and make you more numerous than your ancestors.
6-7God, your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children’s hearts, freeing you to love God, your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live. God, your God, will put all these curses on your enemies who hated you and were out to get you.
8-9And you will make a new start, listening obediently to God, keeping all his commandments that I’m commanding you today. God, your God, will outdo himself in making things go well for you: you’ll have babies, get calves, grow crops, and enjoy an all-around good life. Yes, God will start enjoying you again, making things go well for you just as he enjoyed doing it for your ancestors.
10But only if you listen obediently to God, your God, and keep the commandments and regulations written in this Book of Revelation. Nothing halfhearted here; you must return to God, your God, totally, heart and soul, holding nothing back.
11-14This commandment that I’m commanding you today isn’t too much for you, it’s not out of your reach. It’s not on a high mountain—you don’t have to get mountaineers to climb the peak and bring it down to your level and explain it before you can live it. And it’s not across the ocean—you don’t have to send sailors out to get it, bring it back, and then explain it before you can live it. No. The word is right here and now—as near as the tongue in your mouth, as near as the heart in your chest. Just do it!
15Look at what I’ve done for you today: I’ve placed in front of you
Life and Good
Death and Evil.
16And I command you today: Love God, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess.
17-18But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, you will most certainly die. You won’t last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
19-20I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Luke 11:37-54

37-41When he finished that talk, a Pharisee asked him to dinner. He entered his house and sat right down at the table. The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended when he saw that Jesus didn’t wash up before the meal. But the Master said to him, “I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn’t the One who made the outside also make the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.
42“I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God’s love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.
43-44“You’re hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You love sitting at the head table at church dinners, love preening yourselves in the radiance of public flattery. Frauds! You’re just like unmarked graves: People walk over that nice, grassy surface, never suspecting the rot and corruption that is six feet under.”
45One of the religion scholars spoke up: “Teacher, do you realize that in saying these things you’re insulting us?”
46He said, “Yes, and I can be even more explicit. You’re hopeless, you religion scholars! You load people down with rules and regulations, nearly breaking their backs, but never lift even a finger to help.
47-51“You’re hopeless! You build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed. The tombs you build are monuments to your murdering ancestors more than to the murdered prophets. That accounts for God’s Wisdom saying, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, but they’ll kill them and run them off.’ What it means is that every drop of righteous blood ever spilled from the time earth began until now, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was struck down between altar and sanctuary, is on your heads. Yes, it’s on the bill of this generation and this generation will pay.
52“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars! You took the key of knowledge, but instead of unlocking doors, you locked them. You won’t go in yourself, and won’t let anyone else in either.”
53-54As soon as Jesus left the table, the religion scholars and Pharisees went into a rage. They went over and over everything he said, plotting how they could trap him in something from his own mouth.

Luke 12:1-7

1-3By this time the crowd, unwieldy and stepping on each other’s toes, numbered into the thousands. But Jesus’ primary concern was his disciples. He said to them, “Watch yourselves carefully so you don’t get contaminated with Pharisee yeast, Pharisee phoniness. You can’t keep your true self hidden forever; before long you’ll be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can’t whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day’s coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town.
4-5“I’m speaking to you as dear friends. Don’t be bluffed into silence or insincerity by the threats of religious bullies. True, they can kill you, but then what can they do? There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands.
6-7“What’s the price of two or three pet canaries? Some loose change, right? But God never overlooks a single one. And he pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.

Psalm 78:1-31

1-4Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth,
bend your ears to what I tell you.
I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb;
I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths,
Stories we heard from our fathers,
counsel we learned at our mother’s knee.
We’re not keeping this to ourselves,
we’re passing it along to the next generation—
God’s fame and fortune,
the marvelous things he has done.
5-8He planted a witness in Jacob,
set his Word firmly in Israel,
Then commanded our parents
to teach it to their children
So the next generation would know,
and all the generations to come—
Know the truth and tell the stories
so their children can trust in God,
Never forget the works of God
but keep his commands to the letter.
Heaven forbid they should be like their parents,
bullheaded and bad,
A fickle and faithless bunch
who never stayed true to God.
9-16The Ephraimites, armed to the teeth,
ran off when the battle began.
They were cowards to God’s Covenant,
refused to walk by his Word.
They forgot what he had done—
marvels he’d done right before their eyes.
He performed miracles in plain sight of their parents
in Egypt, out on the fields of Zoan.
He split the Sea and they walked right through it;
he piled the waters to the right and the left.
He led them by day with a cloud,
led them all the night long with a fiery torch.
He split rocks in the wilderness,
gave them all they could drink from underground springs;
He made creeks flow out from sheer rock,
and water pour out like a river.
17-20All they did was sin even more,
rebel in the desert against the High God.
They tried to get their own way with God,
clamored for favors, for special attention.
They whined like spoiled children,
“Why can’t God give us a decent meal in this desert?
Sure, he struck the rock and the water flowed,
creeks cascaded from the rock.
But how about some fresh-baked bread?
How about a nice cut of meat?”
21-31When God heard that, he was furious—
his anger flared against Jacob,
he lost his temper with Israel.
It was clear they didn’t believe God,
had no intention of trusting in his help.
But God helped them anyway, commanded the clouds
and gave orders that opened the gates of heaven.
He rained down showers of manna to eat,
he gave them the Bread of Heaven.
They ate the bread of the mighty angels;
he sent them all the food they could eat.
He let East Wind break loose from the skies,
gave a strong push to South Wind.
This time it was birds that rained down—
succulent birds, an abundance of birds.
He aimed them right for the center of their camp;
all round their tents there were birds.
They ate and had their fill;
he handed them everything they craved on a platter.
But their greed knew no bounds;
they stuffed their mouths with more and more.
Finally, God was fed up, his anger erupted—
he cut down their brightest and best,
he laid low Israel’s finest young men.

Proverbs 12:19-20

19Truth lasts;
lies are here today, gone tomorrow.
20Evil scheming distorts the schemer;
peace-planning brings joy to the planner.

Daily "Read Through the Bible" Day 95

Deuteronomy 28:1-68

1-6If you listen obediently to the Voice of God, your God, and heartily obey all his commandments that I command you today, God, your God, will place you on high, high above all the nations of the world. All these blessings will come down on you and spread out beyond you because you have responded to the Voice of God, your God:

God’s blessing inside the city,

God’s blessing in the country;

God’s blessing on your children,

the crops of your land,

the young of your livestock,

the calves of your herds,

the lambs of your flocks.

God’s blessing on your basket and bread bowl;

God’s blessing in your coming in,

God’s blessing in your going out.

7God will defeat your enemies who attack you. They’ll come at you on one road and run away on seven roads.

8God will order a blessing on your barns and workplaces; he’ll bless you in the land that God, your God, is giving you.

9God will form you as a people holy to him, just as he promised you, if you keep the commandments of God, your God, and live the way he has shown you.

10All the peoples on Earth will see you living under the Name of God and hold you in respectful awe.

11-14God will lavish you with good things: children from your womb, offspring from your animals, and crops from your land, the land that God promised your ancestors that he would give you. God will throw open the doors of his sky vaults and pour rain on your land on schedule and bless the work you take in hand. You will lend to many nations but you yourself won’t have to take out a loan. God will make you the head, not the tail; you’ll always be the top dog, never the bottom dog, as you obediently listen to and diligently keep the commands of God, your God, that I am commanding you today. Don’t swerve an inch to the right or left from the words that I command you today by going off following and worshiping other gods.

15-19Here’s what will happen if you don’t obediently listen to the Voice of God, your God, and diligently keep all the commandments and guidelines that I’m commanding you today. All these curses will come down hard on you:

God’s curse in the city,

God’s curse in the country;

God’s curse on your basket and bread bowl;

God’s curse on your children,

the crops of your land,

the young of your livestock,

the calves of your herds,

the lambs of your flocks.

God’s curse in your coming in,

God’s curse in your going out.

20God will send The Curse, The Confusion, The Contrariness down on everything you try to do until you’ve been destroyed and there’s nothing left of you—all because of your evil pursuits that led you to abandon me.

21God will infect you with The Disease, wiping you right off the land that you’re going in to possess.

22God will set consumption and fever and rash and seizures and dehydration and blight and jaundice on you. They’ll hunt you down until they kill you.

23-24The sky over your head will become an iron roof, the ground under your feet, a slab of concrete. From out of the skies God will rain ash and dust down on you until you suffocate.

25-26God will defeat you by enemy attack. You’ll come at your enemies on one road and run away on seven roads. All the kingdoms of Earth will see you as a horror. Carrion birds and animals will boldly feast on your dead body with no one to chase them away.

27-29God will hit you hard with the boils of Egypt, hemorrhoids, scabs, and an incurable itch. He’ll make you go crazy and blind and senile. You’ll grope around in the middle of the day like a blind person feeling his way through a lifetime of darkness; you’ll never get to where you’re going. Not a day will go by that you’re not abused and robbed. And no one is going to help you.

30-31You’ll get engaged to a woman and another man will take her for his mistress; you’ll build a house and never live in it; you’ll plant a garden and never eat so much as a carrot; you’ll watch your ox get butchered and not get a single steak from it; your donkey will be stolen from in front of you and you’ll never see it again; your sheep will be sent off to your enemies and no one will lift a hand to help you.

32-34Your sons and daughters will be shipped off to foreigners; you’ll wear your eyes out looking vainly for them, helpless to do a thing. Your crops and everything you work for will be eaten and used by foreigners; you’ll spend the rest of your lives abused and knocked around. What you see will drive you crazy.

35God will hit you with painful boils on your knees and legs and no healing or relief from head to foot.

36-37God will lead you and the king you set over you to a country neither you nor your ancestors have heard of; there you’ll worship other gods, no-gods of wood and stone. Among all the peoples where God will take you, you’ll be treated as a lesson or a proverb—a horror!

38-42You’ll plant sacks and sacks of seed in the field but get almost nothing—the grasshoppers will devour it. You’ll plant and hoe and prune vineyards but won’t drink or put up any wine—the worms will devour them. You’ll have groves of olive trees everywhere, but you’ll have no oil to rub on your face or hands—the olives will have fallen off. You’ll have sons and daughters but they won’t be yours for long—they’ll go off to captivity. Locusts will take over all your trees and crops.

43-44The foreigner who lives among you will climb the ladder, higher and higher, while you go deeper and deeper into the hole. He’ll lend to you; you won’t lend to him. He’ll be the head; you’ll be the tail.

45-46All these curses are going to come on you. They’re going to hunt you down and get you until there’s nothing left of you because you didn’t obediently listen to the Voice of God, your God, and diligently keep his commandments and guidelines that I commanded you. The curses will serve as signposts, warnings to your children ever after.

47-48Because you didn’t serve God, your God, out of the joy and goodness of your heart in the great abundance, you’ll have to serve your enemies whom God will send against you. Life will be famine and drought, rags and wretchedness; then he’ll put an iron yoke on your neck until he’s destroyed you.

48-52Yes, God will raise up a faraway nation against you, swooping down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you can’t understand, a mean-faced people, cruel to grandmothers and babies alike. They’ll ravage the young of your animals and the crops from your fields until you’re destroyed. They’ll leave nothing behind: no grain, no wine, no oil, no calves, no lambs—and finally, no you. They’ll lay siege to you while you’re huddled behind your town gates. They’ll knock those high, proud walls flat, those walls behind which you felt so safe. They’ll lay siege to your fortified cities all over the country, this country that God, your God, has given you.

53-55And you’ll end up cannibalizing your own sons and daughters that God, your God, has given you. When the suffering from the siege gets extreme, you’re going to eat your own babies. The most gentle and caring man among you will turn hard, his eye evil, against his own brother, his cherished wife, and even the rest of his children who are still alive, refusing to share with them a scrap of meat from the cannibal child-stew he is eating. He’s lost everything, even his humanity, in the suffering of the siege that your enemy mounts against your fortified towns.

56-57And the most gentle and caring woman among you, a woman who wouldn’t step on a wildflower, will turn hard, her eye evil, against her cherished husband, against her son, against her daughter, against even the afterbirth of her newborn infants; she plans to eat them in secret—she does eat them!—because she has lost everything, even her humanity, in the suffering of the siege that your enemy mounts against your fortified towns.

58-61If you don’t diligently keep all the words of this Revelation written in this book, living in holy awe before This Name glorious and terrible, God, your God, then God will pound you with catastrophes, you and your children, huge interminable catastrophes, hideous interminable illnesses. He’ll bring back and stick you with every old Egyptian malady that once terrorized you. And yes, every disease and catastrophe imaginable—things not even written in the Book of this Revelation—God will bring on you until you’re destroyed.

62Because you didn’t listen obediently to the Voice of God, your God, you’ll be left with a few pitiful stragglers in place of the dazzling stars-in-the-heavens multitude you had become.

63-66And this is how things will end up: Just as God once enjoyed you, took pleasure in making life good for you, giving you many children, so God will enjoy getting rid of you, clearing you off the Earth. He’ll weed you out of the very soil that you are entering in to possess. He’ll scatter you to the four winds, from one end of the Earth to the other. You’ll worship all kinds of other gods, gods neither you nor your parents ever heard of, wood and stone no-gods. But you won’t find a home there, you’ll not be able to settle down. God will give you a restless heart, longing eyes, a homesick soul. You will live in constant jeopardy, terrified of every shadow, never knowing what you’ll meet around the next corner.

67In the morning you’ll say, “I wish it were evening.” In the evening you’ll say, “I wish it were morning.” Afraid, terrorized at what’s coming next, afraid of the unknown, because of the sights you’ve witnessed.

68God will ship you back to Egypt by a road I promised you’d never see again. There you’ll offer yourselves for sale, both men and women, as slaves to your enemies. And not a buyer to be found.

Luke 11:14-36

14-16Jesus delivered a man from a demon that had kept him speechless. The demon gone, the man started talking a blue streak, taking the crowd by complete surprise. But some from the crowd were cynical. “Black magic,” they said. “Some devil trick he’s pulled from his sleeve.” Others were skeptical, waiting around for him to prove himself with a spectacular miracle.
17-20Jesus knew what they were thinking and said, “Any country in civil war for very long is wasted. A constantly squabbling family falls to pieces. If Satan cancels Satan, is there any Satan left? You accuse me of ganging up with the Devil, the prince of demons, to cast out demons, but if you’re slinging devil mud at me, calling me a devil who kicks out devils, doesn’t the same mud stick to your own exorcists? But if it’s God’s finger I’m pointing that sends the demons on their way, then God’s kingdom is here for sure.
21-22“When a strong man, armed to the teeth, stands guard in his front yard, his property is safe and sound. But what if a stronger man comes along with superior weapons? Then he’s beaten at his own game, the arsenal that gave him such confidence hauled off, and his precious possessions plundered.
23“This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you’re not on my side, you’re the enemy; if you’re not helping, you’re making things worse.
24-26“When a corrupting spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn’t find anyone, it says, ‘I’ll go back to my old haunt.’ On return, it finds the person swept and dusted, but vacant. It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits dirtier than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse than if he’d never gotten cleaned up in the first place.”
27While he was saying these things, some woman lifted her voice above the murmur of the crowd: “Blessed the womb that carried you, and the breasts at which you nursed!”
28Jesus commented, “Even more blessed are those who hear God’s Word and guard it with their lives!”
Keep Your Eyes Open
29-30As the crowd swelled, he took a fresh tack: “The mood of this age is all wrong. Everybody’s looking for proof, but you’re looking for the wrong kind. All you’re looking for is something to titillate your curiosity, satisfy your lust for miracles. But the only proof you’re going to get is the Jonah-proof given to the Ninevites, which looks like no proof at all. What Jonah was to Nineveh, the Son of Man is to this age.
32,31“On Judgment Day the Ninevites will stand up and give evidence that will condemn this generation, because when Jonah preached to them they changed their lives. A far greater preacher than Jonah is here, and you squabble about ‘proofs.’ On Judgment Day the Queen of Sheba will come forward and bring evidence that condemns this generation, because she traveled from a far corner of the earth to listen to wise Solomon. Wisdom far greater than Solomon’s is right in front of you, and you quibble over ‘evidence.’
33-36“No one lights a lamp, then hides it in a drawer. It’s put on a lamp stand so those entering the room have light to see where they’re going. Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky. Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.”

Psalm 77:1-20

1I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might,
I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.
2-6I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord;
my life was an open wound that wouldn’t heal.
When friends said, “Everything will turn out all right,”
I didn’t believe a word they said.
I remember God—and shake my head.
I bow my head—then wring my hands.
I’m awake all night—not a wink of sleep;
I can’t even say what’s bothering me.
I go over the days one by one,
I ponder the years gone by.
I strum my lute all through the night,
wondering how to get my life together.
7-10Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good?
Will he never smile again?
Is his love worn threadbare?
Has his salvation promise burned out?
Has God forgotten his manners?
Has he angrily stalked off and left us?
“Just my luck,” I said. “The High God goes out of business
just the moment I need him.”
11-12Once again I’ll go over what God has done,
lay out on the table the ancient wonders;
I’ll ponder all the things you’ve accomplished,
and give a long, loving look at your acts.
13-15O God! Your way is holy!
No god is great like God!
You’re the God who makes things happen;
you showed everyone what you can do—
You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble,
rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph.
16-19Ocean saw you in action, God,
saw you and trembled with fear;
Deep Ocean was scared to death.
Clouds belched buckets of rain,
Sky exploded with thunder,
your arrows flashing this way and that.
From Whirlwind came your thundering voice,
Lightning exposed the world,
Earth reeled and rocked.
You strode right through Ocean,
walked straight through roaring Ocean,
but nobody saw you come or go.
20Hidden in the hands of Moses and Aaron,
You led your people like a flock of sheep.

Proverbs 12:18

18Rash language cuts and maims,
but there is healing in the words of the wise.

Daily "Read Through the Bible" Day 94

Deuteronomy 26:1-19

1-5Once you enter the land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance and take it over and settle down, you are to take some of all the firstfruits of what you grow in the land that God, your God, is giving you, put them in a basket and go to the place God, your God, sets apart for you to worship him. At that time, go to the priest who is there and say, “I announce to God, your God, today that I have entered the land that God promised our ancestors that he’d give to us.” The priest will take the basket from you and place it on the Altar of God, your God. And there in the Presence of God, your God, you will recite:

5-10A wandering Aramean was my father,

he went down to Egypt and sojourned there,

he and just a handful of his brothers at first, but soon

they became a great nation, mighty and many.

The Egyptians abused and battered us,

in a cruel and savage slavery.

We cried out to God, the God-of-Our-Fathers:

He listened to our voice, he saw

our destitution, our trouble, our cruel plight.

And God took us out of Egypt

with his strong hand and long arm, terrible and great,

with signs and miracle-wonders.

And he brought us to this place,

gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.

So here I am. I’ve brought the firstfruits

of what I’ve grown on this ground you gave me, O God.

10-11Then place it in the Presence of God, your God. Prostrate yourselves in the Presence of God, your God. And rejoice! Celebrate all the good things that God, your God, has given you and your family; you and the Levite and the foreigner who lives with you.

12-14Every third year, the year of the tithe, give a tenth of your produce to the Levite, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow so that they may eat their fill in your cities. And then, in the Presence of God, your God, say this:

I have brought the sacred share,

I’ve given it to the Levite, foreigner, orphan, and widow.

What you commanded, I’ve done.

I haven’t detoured around your commands,

I haven’t forgotten a single one.

I haven’t eaten from the sacred share while mourning,

I haven’t removed any of it while ritually unclean,

I haven’t used it in funeral feasts.

I have listened obediently to the Voice of God, my God,

I have lived the way you commanded me.

15Look down from your holy house in Heaven!

Bless your people Israel and the ground you gave us,

just as you promised our ancestors you would,

this land flowing with milk and honey.

16-17This very day God, your God, commands you to follow these rules and regulations, to live them out with everything you have in you. You’ve renewed your vows today that God is your God, that you’ll live the way he shows you; do what he tells you in the rules, regulations, and commandments; and listen obediently to him.

18-19And today God has reaffirmed that you are dearly held treasure just as he promised, a people entrusted with keeping his commandments, a people set high above all other nations that he’s made, high in praise, fame, and honor: you’re a people holy to God, your God. That’s what he has promised.

Deuteronomy 27:1-26

1-3Moses commanded the leaders of Israel and charged the people: Keep every commandment that I command you today. On the day you cross the Jordan into the land that God, your God, is giving you, erect large stones and coat them with plaster. As soon as you cross over the river, write on the stones all the words of this Revelation so that you’ll enter the land that God, your God, is giving you, that land flowing with milk and honey that God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, promised you.

4-7So when you’ve crossed the Jordan, erect these stones on Mount Ebal. Then coat them with plaster. Build an Altar of stones for God, your God, there on the mountain. Don’t use an iron tool on the stones; build the Altar to God, your God, with uncut stones and offer your Whole-Burnt-Offerings on it to God, your God. When you sacrifice your Peace-Offerings you will also eat them there, rejoicing in the Presence of God, your God.

8Write all the words of this Revelation on the stones. Incise them sharply.

9-10Moses and the Levitical priests addressed all Israel: Quiet. Listen obediently, Israel. This very day you have become the people of God, your God. Listen to the Voice of God, your God. Keep his commandments and regulations that I’m commanding you today.

11-13That day Moses commanded: After you’ve crossed the Jordan, these tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these will stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

14-26The Levites, acting as spokesmen and speaking loudly, will address Israel:

God’s curse on anyone who carves or casts a god-image—an abomination to God made by a craftsman—and sets it up in secret.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who demeans a parent.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who moves his neighbor’s boundary marker.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who misdirects a blind man on the road.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who interferes with justice due the foreigner, orphan, or widow.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who has sex with his father’s wife; he has violated the woman who belongs to his father.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who has sex with an animal.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who has sex with his sister, the daughter of his father or mother.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who has sex with his mother-in-law.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who kills his neighbor in secret.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on anyone who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

God’s curse on whoever does not give substance to the words of this Revelation by living them.

All respond: Yes. Absolutely. 

Luke 10:38-42

38-40As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”

41-42The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”

Luke 11:1-13

1One day he was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, “Master, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”

2-4So he said, “When you pray, say,

Father,

Reveal who you are.

Set the world right.

Keep us alive with three square meals.

Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”

5-6Then he said, “Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don’t have a thing on hand.’

7“The friend answers from his bed, ‘Don’t bother me. The door’s locked; my children are all down for the night; I can’t get up to give you anything.’

8“But let me tell you, even if he won’t get up because he’s a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he’ll finally get up and get you whatever you need.

9“Here’s what I’m saying:

Ask and you’ll get;

Seek and you’ll find;

Knock and the door will open.

10-13“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing—you’re at least decent to your own children. And don’t you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?”

Psalm 76:1-12

1-3God is well-known in Judah;

in Israel, he’s a household name.

He keeps a house in Salem,

his own suite of rooms in Zion.

That’s where, using arrows for kindling,

he made a bonfire of weapons of war.

4-6Oh, how bright you shine!

Outshining their huge piles of loot!

The warriors were plundered

and left there impotent.

And now there’s nothing to them,

nothing to show for their swagger and threats.

Your sudden roar, God of Jacob,

knocked the wind out of horse and rider.

7-10Fierce you are, and fearsome!

Who can stand up to your rising anger?

From heaven you thunder judgment;

earth falls to her knees and holds her breath.

God stands tall and makes things right,

he saves all the wretched on earth.

Instead of smoldering rage—God-praise!

All that sputtering rage—now a garland for God!

11-12Do for God what you said you’d do—

he is, after all, your God.

Let everyone in town bring offerings

to the One Who Watches our every move.

Nobody gets by with anything,

no one plays fast and loose with him.

Proverbs 12:15-17

15Fools are headstrong and do what they like;

wise people take advice.

16Fools have short fuses and explode all too quickly;

the prudent quietly shrug off insults.

17Truthful witness by a good person clears the air,

but liars lay down a smoke screen of deceit.

Daily "Read Through the Bible" Day 93

Deuteronomy 23:1-25

1No eunuch is to enter the congregation of God.

2No bastard is to enter the congregation of God, even to the tenth generation, nor any of his children.

3-6No Ammonite or Moabite is to enter the congregation of God, even to the tenth generation, nor any of his children, ever. Those nations didn’t treat you with hospitality on your travels out of Egypt, and on top of that they also hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Mesopotamia to curse you. God, your God, refused to listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing—how God, your God, loves you! Don’t even try to get along with them or do anything for them, ever.

7But don’t spurn an Edomite; he’s your kin.

And don’t spurn an Egyptian; you were a foreigner in his land.

8Children born to Edomites and Egyptians may enter the congregation of God in the third generation.

9-11When you are camped out, at war with your enemies, be careful to keep yourself from anything ritually defiling. If one of your men has become ritually unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must go outside the camp and stay there until evening when he can wash himself, returning to the camp at sunset.

12-14Mark out an area outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourselves. Along with your weapons have a stick with you. After you relieve yourself, dig a hole with the stick and cover your excrement. God, your God, strolls through your camp; he’s present to deliver you and give you victory over your enemies. Keep your camp holy; don’t permit anything indecent or offensive in God’s eyes.

15-16Don’t return a runaway slave to his master; he’s come to you for refuge. Let him live wherever he wishes within the protective gates of your city. Don’t take advantage of him.

17-18No daughter of Israel is to become a sacred prostitute; and no son of Israel is to become a sacred prostitute. And don’t bring the fee of a sacred whore or the earnings of a priest-pimp to the house of God, your God, to pay for any vow—they are both an abomination to God, your God.

19-20Don’t charge interest to your kinsmen on any loan: not for money or food or clothing or anything else that could earn interest. You may charge foreigners interest, but you may not charge your brothers interest; that way God, your God, will bless all the work that you take up and the land that you are entering to possess.

21-23When you make a vow to God, your God, don’t put off keeping it; God, your God, expects you to keep it and if you don’t you’re guilty. But if you don’t make a vow in the first place, there’s no sin. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. Keep the vow you willingly vowed to God, your God. You promised it, so do it.

24-25When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want until you’re full, but you may not put any in your bucket or bag. And when you walk through the ripe grain of your neighbor, you may pick the heads of grain, but you may not swing your sickle there.

Deuteronomy 24:1-22

1-4If a man marries a woman and then it happens that he no longer likes her because he has found something wrong with her, he may give her divorce papers, put them in her hand, and send her off. After she leaves, if she becomes another man’s wife and he also comes to hate her and this second husband also gives her divorce papers, puts them in her hand, and sends her off, or if he should die, then the first husband who divorced her can’t marry her again. She has made herself ritually unclean, and her remarriage would be an abomination in the Presence of God and defile the land with sin, this land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance.

5When a man takes a new wife, he is not to go out with the army or be given any business or work duties. He gets one year off simply to be at home making his wife happy.

6Don’t seize a handmill or an upper millstone as collateral for a loan. You’d be seizing someone’s very life.

7If a man is caught kidnapping one of his kinsmen, someone of the People of Israel, to enslave or sell him, the kidnapper must die. Purge that evil from among you.

8-9Warning! If a serious skin disease breaks out, follow exactly the rules set down by the Levitical priests. Follow them precisely as I commanded them. Don’t forget what God, your God, did to Miriam on your way out of Egypt.

10-13When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, don’t enter his house to claim his pledge. Wait outside. Let the man to whom you made the pledge bring the pledge to you outside. And if he is destitute, don’t use his cloak as a bedroll; return it to him at nightfall so that he can sleep in his cloak and bless you. In the sight of God, your God, that will be viewed as a righteous act.

14-15Don’t abuse a laborer who is destitute and needy, whether he is a fellow Israelite living in your land and in your city. Pay him at the end of each workday; he’s living from hand to mouth and needs it now. If you hold back his pay, he’ll protest to God and you’ll have sin on your books.

16Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their parents. Each person shall be put to death for his own sin.

17-18Make sure foreigners and orphans get their just rights. Don’t take the cloak of a widow as security for a loan. Don’t ever forget that you were once slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there. I command you: Do what I’m telling you.

19-22When you harvest your grain and forget a sheaf back in the field, don’t go back and get it; leave it for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow so that God, your God, will bless you in all your work. When you shake the olives off your trees, don’t go back over the branches and strip them bare—what’s left is for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. And when you cut the grapes in your vineyard, don’t take every last grape—leave a few for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow. Don’t ever forget that you were a slave in Egypt. I command you: Do what I’m telling you.

Deuteronomy 25:1-19

1-3When men have a legal dispute, let them go to court; the judges will decide between them, declaring one innocent and the other guilty. If the guilty one deserves punishment, the judge will have him prostrate himself before him and lashed as many times as his crime deserves, but not more than forty. If you hit him more than forty times, you will degrade him to something less than human.

4Don’t muzzle an ox while it is threshing.

5-6When brothers are living together and one of them dies without having had a son, the widow of the dead brother shall not marry a stranger from outside the family; her husband’s brother is to come to her and marry her and do the brother-in-law’s duty by her. The first son that she bears shall be named after her dead husband so his name won’t die out in Israel.

7-10But if the brother doesn’t want to marry his sister-in-law, she is to go to the leaders at the city gate and say, “My brother-in-law refuses to keep his brother’s name alive in Israel; he won’t agree to do the brother-in-law’s duty by me.” Then the leaders will call for the brother and confront him. If he stands there defiant and says, “I don’t want her,” his sister-in-law is to pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and say, “This is what happens to the man who refuses to build up the family of his brother—his name in Israel will be Family-No-Sandal.”

11-12When two men are in a fight and the wife of the one man, trying to rescue her husband, grabs the genitals of the man hitting him, you are to cut off her hand. Show no pity.

13-16Don’t carry around with you two weights, one heavy and the other light, and don’t keep two measures at hand, one large and the other small. Use only one weight, a true and honest weight, and one measure, a true and honest measure, so that you will live a long time on the land that God, your God, is giving you. Dishonest weights and measures are an abomination to God, your God—all this corruption in business deals!

17-19Don’t forget what Amalek did to you on the road after you left Egypt, how he attacked you when you were tired, barely able to put one foot in front of another, mercilessly cut off your stragglers, and had no regard for God. When God, your God, gives you rest from all the enemies that surround you in the inheritance-land God, your God, is giving you to possess, you are to wipe the name of Amalek from off the Earth. Don’t forget!

Luke 10:13-37

13-14“Doom, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had been given half the chances given you, they’d have been on their knees long ago, repenting and crying for mercy. Tyre and Sidon will have it easy on Judgment Day compared to you.

15“And you, Capernaum! Do you think you’re about to be promoted to heaven? Think again. You’re on a mudslide to hell.

16“The one who listens to you, listens to me. The one who rejects you, rejects me. And rejecting me is the same as rejecting God, who sent me.”

17The seventy came back triumphant. “Master, even the demons danced to your tune!”

18-20Jesus said, “I know. I saw Satan fall, a bolt of lightning out of the sky. See what I’ve given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you. All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God’s authority over you and presence with you. Not what you do for God but what God does for you—that’s the agenda for rejoicing.”

21At that, Jesus rejoiced, exuberant in the Holy Spirit. “I thank you, Father, Master of heaven and earth, that you hid these things from the know-it-alls and showed them to these innocent newcomers. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.

22“I’ve been given it all by my Father! Only the Father knows who the Son is and only the Son knows who the Father is. The Son can introduce the Father to anyone he wants to.”

23-24He then turned in a private aside to his disciples. “Fortunate the eyes that see what you’re seeing! There are plenty of prophets and kings who would have given their right arm to see what you are seeing but never got so much as a glimpse, to hear what you are hearing but never got so much as a whisper.”

Defining “Neighbor”

25Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

26He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

27He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

28“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

29Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

30-32Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

33-35“A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’

36“What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”

37“The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.

Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”

Psalm 75:1-10

1We thank you, God, we thank you—

your Name is our favorite word;

your mighty works are all we talk about.

2-4You say, “I’m calling this meeting to order,

I’m ready to set things right.

When the earth goes topsy-turvy

And nobody knows which end is up,

I nail it all down,

I put everything in place again.

I say to the smart alecks, ‘That’s enough,’

to the bullies, ‘Not so fast.’”

5-6Don’t raise your fist against High God.

Don’t raise your voice against Rock of Ages.

He’s the One from east to west;

from desert to mountains, he’s the One.

7-8God rules: he brings this one down to his knees,

pulls that one up on her feet.

God has a cup in his hand,

a bowl of wine, full to the brim.

He draws from it and pours;

it’s drained to the dregs.

Earth’s wicked ones drink it all,

drink it down to the last bitter drop!

9-10And I’m telling the story of God Eternal,

singing the praises of Jacob’s God.

The fists of the wicked

are bloody stumps,

The arms of the righteous

are lofty green branches.

Proverbs 12:12-14

12What the wicked construct finally falls into ruin,

while the roots of the righteous give life, and more life.

Wise People Take Advice

13The gossip of bad people gets them in trouble;

the conversation of good people keeps them out of it.

14Well-spoken words bring satisfaction;

well-done work has its own reward.