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Mon 2023-09-25 Judges3 Acts (of the Apostles)7 Jeremiah16 Mark2
Judges 3.
3:1 These are the nations the LORD left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan
3:2 (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience):
3:3 the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath.
3:4 They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the LORD'S commands, which he had given their forefathers through Moses.
3:5 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
3:6 They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
3:7 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
3:8 The anger of the LORD burned against Israel so that he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years.
3:9 But when they cried out to the LORD, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, who saved them.
3:10 The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, so that he became Israel's judge and went to war. The LORD gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him.
3:11 So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.
3:12 Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and because they did this evil the LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel.
3:13 Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms.
3:14 The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years.
3:15 Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD, and he gave them a deliverer--Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab.
3:16 Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing.
3:17 He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man.
3:18 After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it.
3:19 At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." The king said, "Quiet!" And all his attendants left him.
3:20 Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, "I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his seat,
3:21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly.
3:22 Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it.
3:23 Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.
3:24 After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, "He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house."
3:25 They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead.
3:26 While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah.
3:27 When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them.
3:28 "Follow me," he ordered, "for the LORD has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands." So they followed him down and, taking possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab, they allowed no one to cross over.
3:29 At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not a man escaped.
3:30 That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.
3:31 After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.
Acts (of the Apostles) 7.
7:1 Then the high priest asked him, "Are these charges true?"
7:2 To this he replied: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.
7:3 'Leave your country and your people,' God said, 'and go to the land I will show you.'
7:4 "So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.
7:5 He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.
7:6 God spoke to him in this way: 'Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
7:7 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,' God said, 'and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.'
7:8 Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
7:9 "Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him
7:10 and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so he made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.
7:11 "Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our fathers could not find food.
7:12 When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit.
7:13 On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family.
7:14 After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.
7:15 Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died.
7:16 Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.
7:17 "As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased.
7:18 Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt.
7:19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
7:20 "At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father's house.
7:21 When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.
7:22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
7:23 "When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites.
7:24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.
7:25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.
7:26 The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?'
7:27 "But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us?
7:28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'
7:29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.
7:30 "After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
7:31 When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord's voice:
7:32 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.' Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
7:33 "Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground.
7:34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.'
7:35 "This is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the words, 'Who made you ruler and judge?' He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
7:36 He led them out of Egypt and did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the desert.
7:37 "This is that Moses who told the Israelites, 'God will send you a prophet like me from your own people.'
7:38 He was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to us.
7:39 "But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
7:40 They told Aaron, 'Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt--we don't know what has happened to him!'
7:41 That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor of what their hands had made.
7:42 But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: "'Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?
7:43 You have lifted up the shrine of Molech and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile' beyond Babylon.
7:44 "Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen.
7:45 Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David,
7:46 who enjoyed God's favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
7:47 But it was Solomon who built the house for him.
7:48 "However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet says:
7:49 "'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be?
7:50 Has not my hand made all these things?'
7:51 "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
7:52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him--
7:53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."
7:54 When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.
7:55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
7:56 "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
7:57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him,
7:58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
7:59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
7:60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep.
Jeremiah 16.
16:1 Then the word of the LORD came to me:
16:2 "You must not marry and have sons or daughters in this place."
16:3 For this is what the LORD says about the sons and daughters born in this land and about the women who are their mothers and the men who are their fathers:
16:4 "They will die of deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried but will be like refuse lying on the ground. They will perish by sword and famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth."
16:5 For this is what the LORD says: "Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal; do not go to mourn or show sympathy, because I have withdrawn my blessing, my love and my pity from this people," declares the LORD.
16:6 "Both high and low will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, and no one will cut himself or shave his head for them.
16:7 No one will offer food to comfort those who mourn for the dead--not even for a father or a mother--nor will anyone give them a drink to console them.
16:8 "And do not enter a house where there is feasting and sit down to eat and drink.
16:9 For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Before your eyes and in your days I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in this place.
16:10 "When you tell these people all this and they ask you, 'Why has the LORD decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the LORD our God?'
16:11 then say to them, 'It is because your fathers forsook me,' declares the LORD, 'and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law.
16:12 But you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers. See how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying me.
16:13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.'
16:14 "However, the days are coming," declares the LORD, "when men will no longer say, 'As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,'
16:15 but they will say, 'As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.' For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers.
16:16 "But now I will send for many fishermen," declares the LORD, "and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks.
16:17 My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.
16:18 I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols."
16:19 O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good.
16:20 Do men make their own gods? Yes, but they are not gods!"
16:21 "Therefore I will teach them--this time I will teach them my power and might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD.
Mark 2.
2:1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.
2:2 So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.
2:3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them.
2:4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.
2:5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
2:6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
2:7 "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
2:8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things?
2:9 Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'?
2:10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." He said to the paralytic,
2:11 "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home."
2:12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
2:13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.
2:14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
2:15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
2:16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
2:17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
2:18 Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"
2:19 Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them.
2:20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
2:21 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse.
2:22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."
2:23 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.
2:24 The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
2:25 He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?
2:26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."
2:27 Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
2:28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."