Day 266 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 150

¹Hallelujah! Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty heavens. ²Praise Him for His mighty acts; praise Him for His excellent greatness. ³Praise Him with the sound of the horn; praise Him with the harp and lyre. ⁴Praise Him with tambourine and dancing; praise Him with strings and flute. ⁵Praise Him with clashing cymbals; praise Him with resounding cymbals. ⁶Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Hallelujah!

New Testament·2 Corinthians 8

¹Now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the churches of Macedonia. ²In the terrible ordeal they suffered, their abundant joy and deep poverty overflowed into rich generosity. ³For I testify that they gave according to their ability and even beyond it. Of their own accord, ⁴they earnestly pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. ⁵And not only did they do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us, because it was the will of God. ⁶So we urged Titus to help complete your act of grace, just as he had started it. ⁷But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, and in the love we inspired in you —see that you also excel in this grace of giving. ⁸I am not making a demand, but I am testing the sincerity of your love in comparison to the earnestness of others. ⁹For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. ¹⁰And this is my opinion about what is helpful for you in this matter: Last year you were the first not only to give, but even to have such a desire. ¹¹Now finish the work, so that you may complete it just as eagerly as you began, according to your means. ¹²For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have. ¹³It is not our intention that others may be relieved while you are burdened, but that there may be equality. ¹⁴At the present time, your surplus will meet their need, so that in turn their surplus will meet your need. Then there will be equality. ¹⁵As it is written: “He who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no shortfall.” ¹⁶But thanks be to God, who put into the heart of Titus the same devotion I have for you. ¹⁷For not only did he welcome our appeal, but he is eagerly coming to you of his own volition. ¹⁸Along with Titus we are sending the brother who is praised by all the churches for his work in the gospel. ¹⁹More than that, this brother was chosen by the churches to accompany us with the offering —the gracious gift we administer to honor the Lord Himself and to show our eagerness to help. ²⁰We hope to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this generous gift. ²¹For we are taking great care to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord, but also in the eyes of men. ²²And we are sending along with them our brother whose earnestness has been proven many times and in many ways, and now even more so by his great confidence in you. ²³As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker among you. As for our brothers, they are messengers of the churches, to the glory of Christ. ²⁴In full view of the churches, then, show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our boasting about you.

Old Testament·Isaiah 4–6

¹In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, “We will eat our own bread and provide our own clothes. Just let us be called by your name. Take away our disgrace!” ²On that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of Israel’s survivors. ³Whoever remains in Zion and whoever is left in Jerusalem will be called holy— all in Jerusalem who are recorded among the living— ⁴when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains from the heart of Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire. ⁵Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud of smoke by day and a glowing flame of fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a canopy, ⁶a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and the rain.

5I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. ²He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour! ³“And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard. ⁴What more could I have done for My vineyard than I already did for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit? ⁵Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled. ⁶I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.” ⁷For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress. ⁸Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field until no place is left and you live alone in the land. ⁹I heard the LORD of Hosts declare: “Surely many houses will become desolate, great mansions left unoccupied. ¹⁰For ten acres of vineyard will yield but a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.” ¹¹Woe to those who rise early in the morning in pursuit of strong drink, who linger into the evening, to be inflamed by wine. ¹²At their feasts are the lyre and harp, tambourines and flutes and wine. They disregard the actions of the LORD and fail to see the work of His hands. ¹³Therefore My people will go into exile for their lack of understanding; their dignitaries are starving and their masses are parched with thirst. ¹⁴Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat and opens wide its enormous jaws, and down go Zion’s nobles and masses, her revelers and carousers! ¹⁵So mankind will be brought low, and each man humbled; the arrogant will lower their eyes. ¹⁶But the LORD of Hosts will be exalted by His justice, and the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness. ¹⁷Lambs will graze as in their own pastures, and strangers will feed in the ruins of the wealthy. ¹⁸Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of deceit and pull sin along with cart ropes, ¹⁹to those who say, “Let Him hurry and hasten His work so that we may see it! Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come so that we may know it!” ²⁰Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness to light and light to darkness, who replace bitter with sweet and sweet with bitter. ²¹Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. ²²Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and champions in mixing beer, ²³who acquit the guilty for a bribe and deprive the innocent of justice. ²⁴Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, and as dry grass shrivels in the flame, so their roots will decay and their blossoms will blow away like dust; for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. ²⁵Therefore the anger of the LORD burns against His people; His hand is raised against them to strike them down. The mountains quake, and the corpses lay like refuse in the streets. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised. ²⁶He lifts a banner for the distant nations and whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come! ²⁷None of them grows weary or stumbles; no one slumbers or sleeps. No belt is loose and no sandal strap is broken. ²⁸Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are strung. The hooves of their horses are like flint; their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind. ²⁹Their roaring is like that of a lion; they roar like young lions. They growl and seize their prey; they carry it away from deliverance. ³⁰In that day they will roar over it, like the roaring of the sea. If one looks over the land, he will see darkness and distress; even the light will be obscured by clouds.

6In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted; and the train of His robe filled the temple. ²Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³And they were calling out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.” ⁴At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. ⁵Then I said: “Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Hosts.” ⁶Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. ⁷And with it he touched my mouth and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.” ⁸Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?” And I said: “Here am I. Send me!” ⁹And He replied: “Go and tell this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ ¹⁰Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” ¹¹Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged, ¹²until the LORD has driven men far away and the land is utterly forsaken. ¹³And though a tenth remains in the land, it will be burned again. As the terebinth and oak leave stumps when felled, so the holy seed will be a stump in the land.”