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Daily Readings for December 2
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Job 1
1.There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God1, and turned away from evil. 2.There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3.His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children of the east. 4.His sons went and held a feast in the house of each one on his birthday; and they sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. 5.It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts." Job did so continually.
6.Now it happened on the day when God's sons came to present themselves before Yahweh,2 that Satan also came among them. 7.Yahweh said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"
Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."
8.Yahweh said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil."
9.Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing? 10.Haven't you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 11.But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face."
12.Yahweh said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don't put forth your hand."
So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh. 13.It fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house, 14.that there came a messenger to Job, and said, "The oxen were plowing, and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15.and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
16.While he was still speaking, there also came another, and said, "The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
17.While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, "The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you."
18.While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, "Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house, 19.and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you."
20.Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped. 21.He said, "Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh." 22.In all this, Job did not sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing.
Job 2
1.Again it happened on the day when the God's sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan came also among them to present himself before Yahweh. 2.Yahweh said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"
Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."
3.Yahweh said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause."
4.Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5.But put forth your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face."
6.Yahweh said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life."
7.So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head. 8.He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes. 9.Then his wife said to him, "Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die."
10.But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"
In all this Job didn't sin with his lips. 11.Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him. 12.When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn't recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky. 13.So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
Jonah 2
1.Then Jonah prayed to Yahweh, his God, out of the fish's belly. 2.He said, "I called because of my affliction to Yahweh. He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol5 I cried. You heard my voice. 3.For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. 4.I said, 'I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.' 5.The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head. 6.I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth barred me in forever: yet have you brought up my life from the pit, Yahweh my God.
7."When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Yahweh. My prayer came in to you, into your holy temple. 8.Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy. 9.But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to Yahweh."
10.Yahweh spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land.
Jonah 3
1.The word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2."Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you."
3.So Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh, according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey across. 4.Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried out, and said, "In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!"
5.The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least. 6.The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7.He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, "Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; 8.but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands. 9.Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?"
10.God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn't do it.
Hebrews 8
1.Now in the things which we are saying, the main point is this. We have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2.a servant of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. 3.For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. 4.For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, seeing there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; 5.who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses was warned by God when he was about to make the tabernacle, for he said, "See, you shall make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain."24 6.But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which on better promises has been given as law. 7.For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8.For finding fault with them, he said, "Behold, the days come," says the Lord, "that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; 9.not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn't continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them," says the Lord. 10."For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days," says the Lord; "I will put my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11.They will not teach every man his fellow citizen,25 and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for all will know me, from their least to their greatest. 12.For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more."26
13.In that he says, "A new covenant," he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away.
Hebrews 9
1.Now indeed even the first27 covenant had ordinances of divine service, and an earthly sanctuary. 2.For a tabernacle was prepared. In the first part were the lampstand, the table, and the show bread; which is called the Holy Place. 3.After the second veil was the tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, 4.having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which was a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; 5.and above it cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat, of which things we can't speak now in detail. 6.Now these things having been thus prepared, the priests go in continually into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the services, 7.but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offers for himself, and for the errors of the people. 8.The Holy Spirit is indicating this, that the way into the Holy Place wasn't yet revealed while the first tabernacle was still standing; 9.which is a symbol of the present age, where gifts and sacrifices are offered that are incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the worshipper perfect; 10.being only (with meats and drinks and various washings) fleshly ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation.
11.But Christ having come as a high priest of the coming good things, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, 12.nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption. 13.For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh: 14.how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 15.For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, since a death has occurred for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, that those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. 16.For where a last will and testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him who made it. 17.For a will is in force where there has been death, for it is never in force while he who made it lives. 18.Therefore even the first covenant has not been dedicated without blood. 19.For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20.saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you."28
21.Moreover he sprinkled the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry in the same way with the blood. 22.According to the law, nearly everything is cleansed with blood, and apart from shedding of blood there is no remission. 23.It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24.For Christ hasn't entered into holy places made with hands, which are representations of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25.nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place year by year with blood not his own, 26.or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27.Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgment, 28.so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many,29 will appear a second time, without sin, to those who are eagerly waiting for him for salvation.