Day 112 reading

Wisdom·Psalms 69:32–70:5

³²The humble will see and rejoice. You who seek God, let your hearts be revived! ³³For the LORD listens to the needy and does not despise His captive people. ³⁴Let heaven and earth praise Him, the seas and everything that moves in them. ³⁵For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah, that they may dwell there and possess it. ³⁶The descendants of His servants will inherit it, and those who love His name will settle in it.

70Make haste, O God, to deliver me! Hurry, O LORD, to help me! ²May those who seek my life be ashamed and confounded; may those who wish me harm be repelled and humiliated. ³May those who say, “Aha, aha!” retreat because of their shame. ⁴May all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; may those who love Your salvation always say, “Let God be magnified!” ⁵But I am poor and needy; hurry to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay.

New Testament·Luke 14:15–35

¹⁵When one of those reclining with Him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is everyone who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.” ¹⁶But Jesus replied, “A certain man prepared a great banquet and invited many guests. ¹⁷When it was time for the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ ¹⁸But one after another they all began to make excuses. The first one said, ‘I have bought a field, and I need to go see it. Please excuse me.’ ¹⁹Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out. Please excuse me.’ ²⁰Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, so I cannot come.’ ²¹The servant returned and reported all this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ ²²‘Sir,’ the servant replied, ‘what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ ²³So the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. ²⁴For I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will taste my banquet.’” ²⁵Large crowds were now traveling with Jesus, and He turned and said to them, ²⁶“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. ²⁷And whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. ²⁸Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has the resources to complete it? ²⁹Otherwise, if he lays the foundation and is unable to finish the work, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, ³⁰saying, ‘This man could not finish what he started to build.’ ³¹Or what king on his way to war with another king will not first sit down and consider whether he can engage with ten thousand men the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³²And if he is unable, he will send a delegation while the other king is still far off, to ask for terms of peace. ³³In the same way, any one of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple. ³⁴Salt is good, but if the salt loses its savor, with what will it be seasoned? ³⁵It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile, and it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Old Testament·Joshua 8–9

¹Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. See, I have delivered into your hand the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land. ²And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set up an ambush behind the city.” ³So Joshua and the whole army set out to attack Ai. Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them out at night ⁴with these orders: “Pay attention. You are to lie in ambush behind the city, not too far from it. All of you must be ready. ⁵Then I and all the troops with me will advance on the city. When they come out against us as they did the first time, we will flee from them. ⁶They will pursue us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, ‘The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.’ So as we flee from them, ⁷you are to rise from the ambush and seize the city, for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand. ⁸And when you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do as the LORD has commanded! See, I have given you orders.” ⁹So Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush and lay in wait between Bethel and Ai, to the west of Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people. ¹⁰Joshua got up early the next morning and mobilized his men, and he and the elders of Israel marched before them up to Ai. ¹¹Then all the troops who were with him marched up and approached the city. They arrived in front of Ai and camped to the north of it, with the valley between them and the city. ¹²Now Joshua had taken about five thousand men and set up an ambush between Bethel and Ai, to the west of the city. ¹³So the forces were stationed with the main camp to the north of the city and the rear guard to the west of the city. And that night Joshua went into the valley. ¹⁴When the king of Ai saw the Israelites, he hurried out early in the morning with the men of the city to engage them in battle at an appointed place overlooking the Arabah. But he did not know that an ambush had been set up against him behind the city. ¹⁵Joshua and all Israel let themselves be beaten back before them, and they fled toward the wilderness. ¹⁶Then all the men of Ai were summoned to pursue them, and they followed Joshua and were drawn away from the city. ¹⁷Not a man was left in Ai or Bethel who did not go out after Israel, leaving the city wide open while they pursued Israel. ¹⁸Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Hold out your battle lance toward Ai, for into your hand I will deliver the city.” So Joshua held out his battle lance toward Ai, ¹⁹and as soon as he did so, the men in ambush rose quickly from their position. They rushed forward, entered the city, captured it, and immediately set it on fire. ²⁰When the men of Ai turned and looked back, the smoke of the city was rising into the sky. They could not escape in any direction, and the troops who had fled to the wilderness now became the pursuers. ²¹When Joshua and all Israel saw that the men in ambush had captured the city and that smoke was rising from it, they turned around and struck down the men of Ai. ²²Meanwhile, those in the ambush came out of the city against them, and the men of Ai were trapped between the Israelite forces on both sides. So Israel struck them down until no survivor or fugitive remained. ²³But they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua. ²⁴When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai who had pursued them into the field and wilderness, and when every last one of them had fallen by the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and put it to the sword as well. ²⁵A total of twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. ²⁶Joshua did not draw back the hand that held his battle lance until he had devoted to destruction all who lived in Ai. ²⁷Israel took for themselves only the cattle and plunder of that city, as the LORD had commanded Joshua. ²⁸So Joshua burned Ai and made it a permanent heap of ruins, a desolation to this day. ²⁹He hung the king of Ai on a tree until evening, and at sunset Joshua commanded that they take down the body from the tree and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And over it they raised a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. ³⁰At that time Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal to the LORD, the God of Israel, ³¹just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the Israelites. He built it according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses: “an altar of uncut stones on which no iron tool has been used.” And on it they offered burnt offerings to the LORD, and they sacrificed peace offerings. ³²And there in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua inscribed on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. ³³All Israel, foreigners and citizens alike, with their elders, officers, and judges, stood on both sides of the ark of the covenant of the LORD facing the Levitical priests who carried it. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded earlier, to bless the people of Israel. ³⁴Afterward, Joshua read aloud all the words of the law—the blessings and the curses—according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. ³⁵There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua failed to read before the whole assembly of Israel, including the women, the little ones, and the foreigners who lived among them.

9Now when news of this reached all the kings west of the Jordan—those in the hill country, the foothills, and all along the coast of the Great Sea toward Lebanon (the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites)— ²they came together to wage war against Joshua and Israel. ³But the people of Gibeon, having heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, ⁴acted deceptively and set out as envoys, carrying on their donkeys worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended. ⁵They put worn, patched sandals on their feet and threadbare clothing on their bodies, and their whole supply of bread was dry and moldy. ⁶They went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land; please make a treaty with us.” ⁷But the men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you dwell near us. How can we make a treaty with you?” ⁸“We are your servants,” they said to Joshua. Then Joshua asked them, “Who are you and where have you come from?” ⁹“Your servants have come from a very distant land,” they replied, “because of the fame of the LORD your God. For we have heard the reports about Him: all that He did in Egypt, ¹⁰and all that He did to the two kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan—Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth. ¹¹So the elders and inhabitants of our land told us, ‘Take provisions for your journey; go to meet them and say to them: We are your servants. Please make a treaty with us.’ ¹²This bread of ours was warm when we packed it at home on the day we left to come to you. But take a look, it is now dry and moldy. ¹³These wineskins were new when we filled them, but look, they are cracked. And these clothes and sandals are worn out from our very long journey.” ¹⁴Then the men of Israel sampled their provisions, but did not seek the counsel of the LORD. ¹⁵And Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore an oath to them. ¹⁶Three days after they had made the treaty with the Gibeonites, the Israelites learned that they were neighbors, living among them. ¹⁷So the Israelites set out and on the third day arrived at their cities—Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim. ¹⁸But the Israelites did not attack them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn an oath to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. And the whole congregation grumbled against the leaders. ¹⁹All the leaders answered, “We have sworn an oath to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we cannot touch them. ²⁰This is how we will treat them: We will let them live, so that no wrath will fall on us because of the oath we swore to them.” ²¹They continued, “Let them live, but let them be woodcutters and water carriers for the whole congregation.” So the leaders kept their promise. ²²Then Joshua summoned the Gibeonites and said, “Why did you deceive us by telling us you live far away from us, when in fact you live among us? ²³Now therefore you are under a curse and will perpetually serve as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.” ²⁴The Gibeonites answered, “Your servants were told clearly that the LORD your God had commanded His servant Moses to give you all the land and wipe out all its inhabitants before you. So we greatly feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we have done this. ²⁵Now we are in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right to you.” ²⁶So Joshua did this and delivered them from the hands of the Israelites, and they did not kill the Gibeonites. ²⁷On that day he made them woodcutters and water carriers, as they are to this day for the congregation of the LORD and for the altar at the place He would choose.