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Daily Readings for December 14
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Job 16
1.Then Job answered, 2."I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters! 3.Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer? 4.I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul's place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you, 5.but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.
6."Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased? 7.But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made desolate all my company. 8.You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face. 9.He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me. 10.They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me. 11.God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked. 12.I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target. 13.His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground. 14.He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs on me like a giant. 15.I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust. 16.My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids. 17.Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.
18."Earth, don't cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest. 19.Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high. 20.My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God, 21.that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor! 22.For when a few years have come, I shall go the way of no return.
Job 17
1."My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me. 2.Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.
3."Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me? 4.For you have hidden their heart from understanding, Therefore you shall not exalt them. 5.He who denounces his friends for a prey, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.
6."But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face. 7.My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow. 8.Upright men shall be astonished at this. The innocent shall stir up himself against the godless. 9.Yet shall the righteous hold on his way. He who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger. 10.But as for you all, come on now again; I shall not find a wise man among you. 11.My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart. 12.They change the night into day, saying 'The light is near' in the presence of darkness. 13.If I look for Sheol6 as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness, 14.If I have said to corruption, 'You are my father;' to the worm, 'My mother,' and 'my sister;' 15.where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it? 16.Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol7, or descend together into the dust?"
Habakkuk 3
1.A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, set to victorious music. 2.Yahweh, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Yahweh. Renew your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years make it known. In wrath, you remember mercy. 3.God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah.
His glory covered the heavens, and his praise filled the earth. 4.His splendor is like the sunrise. Rays shine from his hand, where his power is hidden. 5.Plague went before him, and pestilence followed his feet. 6.He stood, and shook the earth. He looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains were crumbled. The age-old hills collapsed. His ways are eternal. 7.I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction. The dwellings of the land of Midian trembled. 8.Was Yahweh displeased with the rivers? Was your anger against the rivers, or your wrath against the sea, that you rode on your horses, on your chariots of salvation? 9.You uncovered your bow. You called for your sworn arrows. Selah. You split the earth with rivers. 10.The mountains saw you, and were afraid. The storm of waters passed by. The deep roared and lifted up its hands on high. 11.The sun and moon stood still in the sky, at the light of your arrows as they went, at the shining of your glittering spear. 12.You marched through the land in wrath. You threshed the nations in anger. 13.You went forth for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the land of wickedness. You stripped them head to foot. Selah.
14.You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret. 15.You trampled the sea with your horses, churning mighty waters. 16.I heard, and my body trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us. 17.For though the fig tree doesn't flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: 18.yet I will rejoice in Yahweh. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! 19.Yahweh, the Lord4, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer's feet, and enables me to go in high places.
For the music director, on my stringed instruments.
2Peter 1
1.Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a like precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: 2.Grace to you and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3.seeing that his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue; 4.by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust. 5.Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge; 6.and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control patience; and in patience godliness; 7.and in godliness brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love. 8.For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful to the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9.For he who lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins. 10.Therefore, brothers,1 be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. 11.For thus you will be richly supplied with the entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
12.Therefore I will not be negligent to remind you of these things, though you know them, and are established in the present truth. 13.I think it right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you; 14.knowing that the putting off of my tent comes swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. 15.Yes, I will make every effort that you may always be able to remember these things even after my departure. 16.For we did not follow cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17.For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."2 18.We heard this voice come out of heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.
19.We have the more sure word of prophecy; and you do well that you heed it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star arises in your hearts: 20.knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. 21.For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.
2Peter 2
1.But false prophets also arose among the people, as false teachers will also be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. 2.Many will follow their immoral3 ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned. 3.In covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn't linger, and their destruction will not slumber. 4.For if God didn't spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus4, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5.and didn't spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly; 6.and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly; 7.and delivered righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the lustful life of the wicked 8.(for that righteous man dwelling among them, was tormented in his righteous soul from day to day with seeing and hearing lawless deeds): 9.the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment; 10.but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement, and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries; 11.whereas angels, though greater in might and power, don't bring a railing judgment against them before the Lord. 12.But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed, 13.receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and blemishes, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you; 14.having eyes full of adultery, and who can't cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing; 15.forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing; 16.but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A mute donkey spoke with a man's voice and stopped the madness of the prophet. 17.These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. 18.For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error; 19.promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.
20.For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21.For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22.But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, "The dog turns to his own vomit again,"5 and "the sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire."