Daily Readings for December 7

Daily Readings for December 7
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Job 9

1.Then Job answered, 2."Truly I know that it is so, but how can man be just with God? 3.If he is pleased to contend with him, he can't answer him one time in a thousand. 4.God who is wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who has hardened himself against him, and prospered? 5.He removes the mountains, and they don't know it, when he overturns them in his anger. 6.He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble. 7.He commands the sun, and it doesn't rise, and seals up the stars. 8.He alone stretches out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea. 9.He makes the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the rooms of the south. 10.He does great things past finding out; yes, marvelous things without number. 11.Behold, he goes by me, and I don't see him. He passes on also, but I don't perceive him. 12.Behold, he snatches away. Who can hinder him? Who will ask him, 'What are you doing?'

13."God will not withdraw his anger. The helpers of Rahab stoop under him. 14.How much less shall I answer him, And choose my words to argue with him? 15.Though I were righteous, yet I wouldn't answer him. I would make supplication to my judge. 16.If I had called, and he had answered me, yet I wouldn't believe that he listened to my voice. 17.For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause. 18.He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness. 19.If it is a matter of strength, behold, he is mighty! If of justice, 'Who,' says he, 'will summon me?' 20.Though I am righteous, my own mouth shall condemn me. Though I am blameless, it shall prove me perverse. 21.I am blameless. I don't respect myself. I despise my life.

22."It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked. 23.If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent. 24.The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the faces of its judges. If not he, then who is it?

25."Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away, they see no good, 26.They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey. 27.If I say, 'I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up;' 28.I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent. 29.I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain? 30.If I wash myself with snow, and cleanse my hands with lye, 31.yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes shall abhor me. 32.For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgment. 33.There is no umpire between us, that might lay his hand on us both. 34.Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid; 35.then I would speak, and not fear him, for I am not so in myself.

Micah 5

1.Now you shall gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek. 2.But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. 3.Therefore he will abandon them until the time that she who is in labor gives birth. Then the rest of his brothers will return to the children of Israel. 4.He shall stand, and shall shepherd in the strength of Yahweh, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God: and they will live, for then he will be great to the ends of the earth. 5.He will be our peace when Assyria invades our land, and when he marches through our fortresses, then we will raise against him seven shepherds, and eight leaders of men. 6.They will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in its gates. He will deliver us from the Assyrian, when he invades our land, and when he marches within our border. 7.The remnant of Jacob will be in the midst of many peoples, like dew from Yahweh, like showers on the grass, that don't wait for man, nor wait for the sons of men. 8.The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is no one to deliver. 9.Let your hand be lifted up above your adversaries, and let all of your enemies be cut off. 10."It will happen in that day," says Yahweh, "That I will cut off your horses out of the midst of you, and will destroy your chariots. 11.I will cut off the cities of your land, and will tear down all your strongholds. 12.I will destroy witchcraft from your hand; and you shall have no soothsayers. 13.I will cut off your engraved images and your pillars out of your midst; and you shall no more worship the work of your hands. 14.I will uproot your Asherim out of your midst; and I will destroy your cities. 15.I will execute vengeance in anger, and wrath on the nations that didn't listen."

James 1

1.James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings. 2.Count it all joy, my brothers¹, when you fall into various temptations, 3.knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4.Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5.But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him. 6.But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. 7.For let that man not think that he will receive anything from the Lord. 8.He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

9.But let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position; 10.and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away. 11.For the sun arises with the scorching wind, and withers the grass, and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in his pursuits.

12.Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him. 13.Let no man say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God," for God can't be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14.But each one is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. 15.Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. 16.Don't be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17.Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow. 18.Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

19.So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; 20.for the anger of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God. 21.Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls². 22.But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. 23.For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; 24.for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25.But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.

26.If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn't bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man's religion is worthless. 27.Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.