Day 91 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 57

¹Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy, for in You my soul takes refuge. In the shadow of Your wings I will take shelter until the danger has passed. ²I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me. ³He reaches down from heaven and saves me; He rebukes those who trample me. Selah God sends forth His loving devotion and His truth. ⁴My soul is among the lions; I lie down with ravenous beasts— with men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. ⁵Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; may Your glory cover all the earth. ⁶They spread a net for my feet; my soul was despondent. They dug a pit before me, but they themselves have fallen into it! Selah ⁷My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing and make music. ⁸Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. ⁹I will praise You, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing Your praises among the peoples. ¹⁰For Your loving devotion reaches to the heavens, and Your faithfulness to the clouds. ¹¹Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; may Your glory cover all the earth.

New Testament·Luke 5:1–25

¹On one occasion, while Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret with the crowd pressing in on Him to hear the word of God, ²He saw two boats at the edge of the lake. The fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. ³Jesus got into the boat belonging to Simon and asked him to put out a little from shore. And sitting down, He taught the people from the boat. ⁴When Jesus had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” ⁵“Master,” Simon replied, “we have worked hard all night without catching anything. But because You say so, I will let down the nets.” ⁶When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to tear. ⁷So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. ⁸When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees. “Go away from me, Lord,” he said, “for I am a sinful man.” ⁹For he and his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰and so were his partners James and John, the sons of Zebedee. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus said to Simon. “From now on you will catch men.” ¹¹And when they had brought their boats ashore, they left everything and followed Him. ¹²While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell facedown and begged Him, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” ¹³Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” He said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him. ¹⁴“Do not tell anyone,” Jesus instructed him. “But go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering Moses prescribed for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” ¹⁵But the news about Jesus spread all the more, and great crowds came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. ¹⁶Yet He frequently withdrew to the wilderness to pray. ¹⁷One day Jesus was teaching, and the Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. People had come from Jerusalem and from every village of Galilee and Judea, and the power of the Lord was present for Him to heal the sick. ¹⁸Just then some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They tried to bring him inside to set him before Jesus, ¹⁹but they could not find a way through the crowd. So they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. ²⁰When Jesus saw their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” ²¹But the scribes and Pharisees began thinking to themselves, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ²²Knowing what they were thinking, Jesus replied, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? ²³Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk?’ ²⁴But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins...” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home.” ²⁵And immediately the man stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.

Old Testament·Numbers 36; Deuteronomy 1

¹Now the family heads of the clan of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, one of the clans of Joseph, approached Moses and the leaders who were the heads of the Israelite families and addressed them, ²saying, “When the LORD commanded my lord to give the land as an inheritance to the Israelites by lot, He also commanded him to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. ³But if they marry any of the men from the other tribes of Israel, their inheritance will be withdrawn from the portion of our fathers and added to the tribe into which they marry. So our allotted inheritance would be taken away. ⁴And when the Jubilee for the Israelites comes, their inheritance will be added to the tribe into which they marry and taken away from the tribe of our fathers.” ⁵So at the word of the LORD, Moses commanded the Israelites: “The tribe of the sons of Joseph speaks correctly. ⁶This is what the LORD has commanded concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: They may marry anyone they please, provided they marry within a clan of the tribe of their father. ⁷No inheritance in Israel may be transferred from tribe to tribe, because each of the Israelites is to retain the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. ⁸Every daughter who possesses an inheritance from any Israelite tribe must marry within a clan of the tribe of her father, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers. ⁹No inheritance may be transferred from one tribe to another, for each tribe of Israel must retain its inheritance.” ¹⁰So the daughters of Zelophehad did as the LORD had commanded Moses. ¹¹Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to cousins on their father’s side. ¹²They married within the clans of the descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained within the tribe of their father’s clan. ¹³These are the commandments and ordinances that the LORD gave the Israelites through Moses on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.

1These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan—in the Arabah opposite Suph—between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. ²It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mount Seir. ³In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the LORD had commanded him concerning them. ⁴This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and then at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth. ⁵On the east side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying: ⁶The LORD our God said to us at Horeb: “You have stayed at this mountain long enough. ⁷Resume your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the foothills, in the Negev, and along the seacoast to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great River Euphrates. ⁸See, I have placed the land before you. Enter and possess the land that the LORD swore He would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants after them.” ⁹At that time I said to you, “I cannot carry the burden for you alone. ¹⁰The LORD your God has multiplied you, so that today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky. ¹¹May the LORD, the God of your fathers, increase you a thousand times over and bless you as He has promised. ¹²But how can I bear your troubles, burdens, and disputes all by myself? ¹³Choose for yourselves wise, understanding, and respected men from each of your tribes, and I will appoint them as your leaders.” ¹⁴And you answered me and said, “What you propose to do is good.” ¹⁵So I took the leaders of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them as leaders over you—as commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, and as officers for your tribes. ¹⁶At that time I charged your judges: “Hear the disputes between your brothers, and judge fairly between a man and his brother or a foreign resident. ¹⁷Show no partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be intimidated by anyone, for judgment belongs to God. And bring to me any case too difficult for you, and I will hear it.” ¹⁸And at that time I commanded you all the things you were to do. ¹⁹And just as the LORD our God had commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites, through all the vast and terrifying wilderness you have seen. When we reached Kadesh-barnea, ²⁰I said: “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God is giving us. ²¹See, the LORD your God has placed the land before you. Go up and take possession of it as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.” ²²Then all of you approached me and said, “Let us send men ahead of us to search out the land and bring us word of what route to follow and which cities to enter.” ²³The plan seemed good to me, so I selected twelve men from among you, one from each tribe. ²⁴They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and spied out the land. ²⁵They took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, carried it down to us, and brought us word: “It is a good land that the LORD our God is giving us.” ²⁶But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. ²⁷You grumbled in your tents and said, “Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to be annihilated. ²⁸Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: ‘The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the heavens. We even saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’” ²⁹So I said to you: “Do not be terrified or afraid of them! ³⁰The LORD your God, who goes before you, will fight for you, just as you saw Him do for you in Egypt ³¹and in the wilderness, where the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way by which you traveled until you reached this place.” ³²But in spite of all this, you did not trust the LORD your God, ³³who went before you on the journey, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day, to seek out a place for you to camp and to show you the road to travel. ³⁴When the LORD heard your words, He grew angry and swore an oath, saying, ³⁵“Not one of the men of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your fathers, ³⁶except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land on which he has set foot, because he followed the LORD wholeheartedly.” ³⁷The LORD was also angry with me on your account, and He said, “Not even you shall enter the land. ³⁸Joshua son of Nun, who stands before you, will enter it. Encourage him, for he will enable Israel to inherit the land. ³⁹And the little ones you said would become captives—your children who on that day did not know good from evil—will enter the land that I will give them, and they will possess it. ⁴⁰But you are to turn back and head for the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.” ⁴¹“We have sinned against the LORD,” you replied. “We will go up and fight, as the LORD our God has commanded us.” Then each of you put on his weapons of war, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country. ⁴²But the LORD said to me, “Tell them not to go up and fight, for I am not with you to keep you from defeat by your enemies.” ⁴³So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the command of the LORD and presumptuously went up into the hill country. ⁴⁴Then the Amorites who lived in the hills came out against you and chased you like a swarm of bees. They routed you from Seir all the way to Hormah. ⁴⁵And you returned and wept before the LORD, but He would not listen to your voice or give ear to you. ⁴⁶For this reason you stayed in Kadesh for a long time—a very long time.