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Sun 2024-02-11 2 Chronicles6 1 John5 Habakkuk1 Luke20
2 Chronicles 6 12-42.
6:12 Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in front of the whole assembly of Israel and spread out his hands.
6:13 Now he had made a bronze platform, five cubits long, five cubits wide and three cubits high, and had placed it in the center of the outer court. He stood on the platform and then knelt down before the whole assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven.
6:14 He said: "O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth--you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way.
6:15 You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it--as it is today.
6:16 "Now LORD, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, 'You shall never fail to have a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons are careful in all they do to walk before me according to my law, as you have done.'
6:17 And now, O LORD, God of Israel, let your word that you promised your servant David come true.
6:18 "But will God really dwell on earth with men? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!
6:19 Yet give attention to your servant's prayer and his plea for mercy, O LORD my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence.
6:20 May your eyes be open toward this temple day and night, this place of which you said you would put your Name there. May you hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place.
6:21 Hear the supplications of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.
6:22 "When a man wrongs his neighbor and is required to take an oath and he comes and swears the oath before your altar in this temple,
6:23 then hear from heaven and act. Judge between your servants, repaying the guilty by bringing down on his own head what he has done. Declare the innocent not guilty and so establish his innocence.
6:24 "When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you and when they turn back and confess your name, praying and making supplication before you in this temple,
6:25 then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land you gave to them and their fathers.
6:26 "When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this place and confess your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them,
6:27 then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Teach them the right way to live, and send rain on the land you gave your people for an inheritance.
6:28 "When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when enemies besiege them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come,
6:29 and when a prayer or plea is made by any of your people Israel--each one aware of his afflictions and pains, and spreading out his hands toward this temple--
6:30 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive, and deal with each man according to all he does, since you know his heart (for you alone know the hearts of men),
6:31 so that they will fear you and walk in your ways all the time they live in the land you gave our fathers.
6:32 "As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm--when he comes and prays toward this temple,
6:33 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.
6:34 "When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to you toward this city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name,
6:35 then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.
6:36 "When they sin against you--for there is no one who does not sin--and you become angry with them and give them over to the enemy, who takes them captive to a land far away or near;
6:37 and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captivity and say, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong and acted wickedly';
6:38 and if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their captivity where they were taken, and pray toward the land you gave their fathers, toward the city you have chosen and toward the temple I have built for your Name;
6:39 then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their pleas, and uphold their cause. And forgive your people, who have sinned against you.
6:40 "Now, my God, may your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.
6:41 "Now arise, O LORD God, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. May your priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, may your saints rejoice in your goodness.
6:42 O LORD God, do not reject your anointed one. Remember the great love promised to David your servant."
1 John 5.
5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
5:2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
5:3 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,
5:4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
5:6 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.
5:7 For there are three that testify:
5:8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
5:9 We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.
5:10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.
5:11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
5:12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
5:15 And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him.
5:16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that.
5:17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.
5:18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.
5:19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
5:20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Habakkuk 1.
1:1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received.
1:2 How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save?
1:3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.
1:4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
1:5 "Look at the nations and watch--and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
1:6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
1:7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.
1:8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;
1:9 they all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.
1:10 They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they build earthen ramps and capture them.
1:11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on--guilty men, whose own strength is their god."
1:12 O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.
1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
1:14 You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.
1:15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.
1:16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
1:17 Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?
Luke 20.
20:1 One day as he was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him.
20:2 "Tell us by what authority you are doing these things," they said. "Who gave you this authority?"
20:3 He replied, "I will also ask you a question. Tell me,
20:4 John's baptism--was it from heaven, or from men?"
20:5 They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Why didn't you believe him?'
20:6 But if we say, 'From men,' all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet."
20:7 So they answered, "We don't know where it was from."
20:8 Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."
20:9 He went on to tell the people this parable: "A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time.
20:10 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed.
20:11 He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed.
20:12 He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.
20:13 "Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.'
20:14 "But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. 'This is the heir,' they said. 'Let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.'
20:15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. "What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?
20:16 He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." When the people heard this, they said, "May this never be!"
20:17 Jesus looked directly at them and asked, "Then what is the meaning of that which is written: "'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone'?
20:18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed."
20:19 The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.
20:20 Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor.
20:21 So the spies questioned him: "Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
20:22 Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
20:23 He saw through their duplicity and said to them,
20:24 "Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?"
20:25 "Caesar's," they replied. He said to them, "Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
20:26 They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.
20:27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question.
20:28 "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother.
20:29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless.
20:30 The second
20:31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children.
20:32 Finally, the woman died too.
20:33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?"
20:34 Jesus replied, "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage.
20:35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage,
20:36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection.
20:37 But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'
20:38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive."
20:39 Some of the teachers of the law responded, "Well said, teacher!"
20:40 And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
20:41 Then Jesus said to them, "How is it that they say the Christ is the Son of David?
20:42 David himself declares in the Book of Psalms: "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand
20:43 until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."'
20:44 David calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?"
20:45 While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples,
20:46 "Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.
20:47 They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely." LUK