Day 95 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 60

¹You have rejected us, O God; You have broken us; You have been angry; restore us! ²You have shaken the land and torn it open. Heal its fractures, for it is quaking. ³You have shown Your people hardship; we are staggered from the wine You made us drink. ⁴You have raised a banner for those who fear You, that they may flee the bow. Selah ⁵Respond and save us with Your right hand, that Your beloved may be delivered. ⁶God has spoken from His sanctuary: “I will triumph! I will parcel out Shechem and apportion the Valley of Succoth. ⁷Gilead is Mine, and Manasseh is Mine; Ephraim is My helmet, Judah is My scepter. ⁸Moab is My washbasin; upon Edom I toss My sandal; over Philistia I shout in triumph.” ⁹Who will bring me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom? ¹⁰Have You not rejected us, O God? Will You no longer march out, O God, with our armies? ¹¹Give us aid against the enemy, for the help of man is worthless. ¹²With God we will perform with valor, and He will trample our enemies.

New Testament·Luke 7:1–24

¹When Jesus had concluded His discourse in the hearing of the people, He went to Capernaum. ²There a highly valued servant of a centurion was sick and about to die. ³When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to ask Him to come and heal his servant. ⁴They came to Jesus and pleaded with Him earnestly, “This man is worthy to have You grant this, ⁵for he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” ⁶So Jesus went with them. But when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends with the message: “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. ⁷That is why I did not consider myself worthy to come to You. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁸For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell one to go, and he goes; and another to come, and he comes. I tell my servant to do something, and he does it.” ⁹When Jesus heard this, He marveled at the centurion. Turning to the crowd following Him, He said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.” ¹⁰And when the messengers returned to the house, they found the servant in good health. ¹¹Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain. His disciples went with Him, accompanied by a large crowd. ¹²As He approached the town gate, He saw a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. ¹³When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said, “Do not weep.” ¹⁴Then He went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. “Young man,” He said, “I tell you, get up!” ¹⁵And the dead man sat up and began to speak! Then Jesus gave him back to his mother. ¹⁶A sense of awe swept over all of them, and they glorified God. “A great prophet has appeared among us!” they said. “God has visited His people!” ¹⁷And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding region. ¹⁸Then John’s disciples informed him about all these things. ¹⁹So John called two of his disciples and sent them to ask the Lord, “Are You the One who was to come, or should we look for someone else?” ²⁰When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to ask, ‘Are You the One who was to come, or should we look for someone else?’” ²¹At that very hour Jesus healed many people of their diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits, and He gave sight to many who were blind. ²²So He replied, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. ²³Blessed is the one who does not fall away on account of Me.” ²⁴After John’s messengers had left, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swaying in the wind?

Old Testament·Deuteronomy 6–7

¹These are the commandments and statutes and ordinances that the LORD your God has instructed me to teach you to follow in the land that you are about to enter and possess, ²so that you and your children and grandchildren may fear the LORD your God all the days of your lives by keeping all His statutes and commandments that I give you, and so that your days may be prolonged. ³Hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe them, so that you may prosper and multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you. ⁴Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. ⁵And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸Tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates. ¹⁰And when the LORD your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would give you—a land with great and splendid cities that you did not build, ¹¹with houses full of every good thing with which you did not fill them, with wells that you did not dig, and with vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied, ¹²be careful not to forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ¹³Fear the LORD your God, serve Him only, and take your oaths in His name. ¹⁴Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you. ¹⁵For the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God. Otherwise the anger of the LORD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth. ¹⁶Do not test the LORD your God as you tested Him at Massah. ¹⁷You are to diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God and the testimonies and statutes He has given you. ¹⁸Do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, so that it may be well with you and that you may enter and possess the good land that the LORD your God swore to give your fathers, ¹⁹driving out all your enemies before you, as the LORD has said. ²⁰In the future, when your son asks, “What is the meaning of the decrees and statutes and ordinances that the LORD our God has commanded you?” ²¹then you are to tell him, “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²²Before our eyes the LORD inflicted great and devastating signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his household. ²³But He brought us out from there to lead us in and give us the land that He had sworn to our fathers. ²⁴And the LORD commanded us to observe all these statutes and to fear the LORD our God, that we may always be prosperous and preserved, as we are to this day. ²⁵And if we are careful to observe every one of these commandments before the LORD our God, as He has commanded us, then that will be our righteousness.”

7When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— ²and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. ³Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, ⁴because they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you. ⁵Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in the fire. ⁶For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth. ⁷The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. ⁸But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. ¹⁰But those who hate Him He repays to their faces with destruction; He will not hesitate to repay to his face the one who hates Him. ¹¹So keep the commandments and statutes and ordinances that I am giving you to follow this day. ¹²If you listen to these ordinances and keep them carefully, then the LORD your God will keep His covenant and the loving devotion that He swore to your fathers. ¹³He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your land—your grain, new wine, and oil, the young of your herds and the lambs of your flocks—in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴You will be blessed above all peoples; among you there will be no barren man or woman or livestock. ¹⁵And the LORD will remove from you all sickness. He will not lay upon you any of the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on all who hate you. ¹⁶You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God will deliver to you. Do not look on them with pity. Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you. ¹⁷You may say in your heart, “These nations are greater than we are; how can we drive them out?” ¹⁸But do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt: ¹⁹the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand and outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. ²⁰Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet against them until even the survivors hiding from you have perished. ²¹Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. ²²The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be enabled to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals would multiply around you. ²³But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. ²⁴He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you; you will annihilate them. ²⁵You must burn up the images of their gods; do not covet the silver and gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it; for it is detestable to the LORD your God. ²⁶And you must not bring any detestable thing into your house, or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. You are to utterly detest and abhor it, because it is set apart for destruction.