Day 39 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 27:6–14

⁶Then my head will be held high above my enemies around me. At His tabernacle I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD. ⁷Hear, O LORD, my voice when I call; be merciful and answer me. ⁸My heart said, “Seek His face.” Your face, O LORD, I will seek. ⁹Hide not Your face from me, nor turn away Your servant in anger. You have been my helper; do not leave me or forsake me, O God of my salvation. ¹⁰Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. ¹¹Teach me Your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path, because of my oppressors. ¹²Do not hand me over to the will of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence. ¹³Still I am certain to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. ¹⁴Wait patiently for the LORD; be strong and courageous. Wait patiently for the LORD!

New Testament·Matthew 24:18–38

¹⁸And let no one in the field return for his cloak. ¹⁹How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! ²⁰Pray that your flight will not occur in the winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹For at that time there will be great tribulation, unmatched from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be seen again. ²²If those days had not been cut short, nobody would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. ²³At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders that would deceive even the elect, if that were possible. ²⁵See, I have told you in advance. ²⁶So if they tell you, ‘There He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. ²⁷For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ²⁸Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. ²⁹Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’ ³⁰At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. ³¹And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. ³²Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its branches become tender and sprout leaves, you know that summer is near. ³³So also, when you see all these things, you will know that He is near, right at the door. ³⁴Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened. ³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away. ³⁶No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³⁷As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.

Old Testament·Exodus 20–21

¹And God spoke all these words: ²“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ³You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath. ⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, ⁶but showing loving devotion to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments. ⁷You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave anyone unpunished who takes His name in vain. ⁸Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates. ¹¹For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. ¹²Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. ¹³You shall not murder. ¹⁴You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵You shall not steal. ¹⁶You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” ¹⁸When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sounding of the ram’s horn, and the mountain enveloped in smoke, they trembled and stood at a distance. ¹⁹“Speak to us yourself and we will listen,” they said to Moses. “But do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” ²⁰“Do not be afraid,” Moses replied. “For God has come to test you, so that the fear of Him may be before you, to keep you from sinning.” ²¹And the people stood at a distance as Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. ²²Then the LORD said to Moses, “This is what you are to tell the Israelites: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven. ²³You are not to make any gods alongside Me; you are not to make for yourselves gods of silver or gold. ²⁴You are to make for Me an altar of earth, and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep and goats and cattle. In every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you. ²⁵Now if you make an altar of stones for Me, you must not build it with stones shaped by tools; for if you use a chisel on it, you will defile it. ²⁶And you must not go up to My altar on steps, lest your nakedness be exposed on it.’

21“These are the ordinances that you are to set before them: ²If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free without paying anything. ³If he arrived alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrived with a wife, she is to leave with him. ⁴If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. ⁵But if the servant declares, ‘I love my master and my wife and children; I do not want to go free,’ ⁶then his master is to bring him before the judges. And he shall take him to the door or doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he shall serve his master for life. ⁷And if a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as the menservants do. ⁸If she is displeasing in the eyes of her master who had designated her for himself, he must allow her to be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, since he has broken faith with her. ⁹And if he chooses her for his son, he must deal with her as with a daughter. ¹⁰If he takes another wife, he must not reduce the food, clothing, or marital rights of his first wife. ¹¹If, however, he does not provide her with these three things, she is free to go without monetary payment. ¹²Whoever strikes and kills a man must surely be put to death. ¹³If, however, he did not lie in wait, but God allowed it to happen, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee. ¹⁴But if a man schemes and acts willfully against his neighbor to kill him, you must take him away from My altar to be put to death. ¹⁵Whoever strikes his father or mother must surely be put to death. ¹⁶Whoever kidnaps another man must be put to death, whether he sells him or the man is found in his possession. ¹⁷Anyone who curses his father or mother must surely be put to death. ¹⁸If men are quarreling and one strikes the other with a stone or a fist, and he does not die but is confined to bed, ¹⁹then the one who struck him shall go unpunished, as long as the other can get up and walk around outside with his staff. Nevertheless, he must compensate the man for his lost work and see that he is completely healed. ²⁰If a man strikes his manservant or maidservant with a rod, and the servant dies by his hand, he shall surely be punished. ²¹However, if the servant gets up after a day or two, the owner shall not be punished, since the servant is his property. ²²If men who are fighting strike a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband demands and as the court allows. ²³But if a serious injury results, then you must require a life for a life— ²⁴eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵burn for burn, wound for wound, and stripe for stripe. ²⁶If a man strikes and blinds the eye of his manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the eye. ²⁷And if he knocks out the tooth of his manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free as compensation for the tooth. ²⁸If an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox must surely be stoned, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the ox shall not be held responsible. ²⁹But if the ox has a habit of goring, and its owner has been warned yet does not restrain it, and it kills a man or woman, then the ox must be stoned and its owner must also be put to death. ³⁰If payment is demanded of him instead, he may redeem his life by paying the full amount demanded of him. ³¹If the ox gores a son or a daughter, it shall be done to him according to the same rule. ³²If the ox gores a manservant or maidservant, the owner must pay thirty shekels of silver to the master of that servant, and the ox must be stoned. ³³If a man opens or digs a pit and fails to cover it, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, ³⁴the owner of the pit shall make restitution; he must pay its owner, and the dead animal will be his. ³⁵If a man’s ox injures his neighbor’s ox and it dies, they must sell the live one and divide the proceeds; they also must divide the dead animal. ³⁶But if it was known that the ox had a habit of goring, yet its owner failed to restrain it, he shall pay full compensation, ox for ox, and the dead animal will be his.