Day 132 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 78:39–47

³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return. ⁴⁰How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert! ⁴¹Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel. ⁴²They did not remember His power — the day He redeemed them from the adversary, ⁴³when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan. ⁴⁴He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink. ⁴⁵He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them. ⁴⁶He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust. ⁴⁷He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

New Testament·Luke 24:14–35

¹⁴They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵And as they talked and deliberated, Jesus Himself came up and walked along with them. ¹⁶But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. ¹⁷He asked them, “What are you discussing so intently as you walk along?” They stood still, with sadness on their faces. ¹⁸One of them, named Cleopas, asked Him, “Are You the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in recent days?” ¹⁹“What things?” He asked. “The events involving Jesus of Nazareth,” they answered. “This man was a prophet, powerful in speech and action before God and all the people. ²⁰Our chief priests and rulers delivered Him up to the sentence of death, and they crucified Him. ²¹But we were hoping He was the One who would redeem Israel. And besides all this, it is the third day since these things took place. ²²Furthermore, some of our women astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³but they did not find His body. They came and told us they had seen a vision of angels, who said that Jesus was alive. ²⁴Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had described. But Him they did not see.” ²⁵Then Jesus said to them, “O foolish ones, how slow are your hearts to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and then to enter His glory?” ²⁷And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself. ²⁸As they approached the village where they were headed, He seemed to be going farther. ²⁹But they pleaded with Him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So He went in to stay with them. ³⁰While He was reclining at the table with them, He took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus—and He disappeared from their sight. ³²They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us as He spoke with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” ³³And they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, gathered together ³⁴and saying, “The Lord has indeed risen and has appeared to Simon!” ³⁵Then the two told what had happened on the road, and how they had recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

Old Testament·Judges 21; Ruth 1

¹Now the men of Israel had sworn an oath at Mizpah, saying, “Not one of us will give his daughter in marriage to a Benjamite.” ²So the people came to Bethel and sat there before God until evening, lifting up their voices and weeping bitterly. ³“Why, O LORD God of Israel,” they cried out, “has this happened in Israel? Today in Israel one tribe is missing!” ⁴The next day the people got up early, built an altar there, and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings. ⁵The Israelites asked, “Who among all the tribes of Israel did not come to the assembly before the LORD?” For they had taken a solemn oath that anyone who failed to come up before the LORD at Mizpah would surely be put to death. ⁶And the Israelites grieved for their brothers, the Benjamites, and said, “Today a tribe is cut off from Israel. ⁷What should we do about wives for the survivors, since we have sworn by the LORD not to give them our daughters in marriage?” ⁸So they asked, “Which one of the tribes of Israel failed to come up before the LORD at Mizpah?” And, in fact, no one from Jabesh-gilead had come to the camp for the assembly. ⁹For when the people were counted, none of the residents of Jabesh-gilead were there. ¹⁰So the congregation sent 12,000 of their most valiant men and commanded them: “Go and put to the sword those living in Jabesh-gilead, including women and children. ¹¹This is what you are to do: Devote to destruction every male, as well as every female who has had relations with a man.” ¹²So they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young women who had not had relations with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan. ¹³Then the whole congregation sent a message of peace to the Benjamites who were at the rock of Rimmon. ¹⁴And at that time the Benjamites returned and were given the women who were spared from Jabesh-gilead. But there were not enough women for all of them. ¹⁵The people grieved for Benjamin, because the LORD had made a void in the tribes of Israel. ¹⁶Then the elders of the congregation said, “What should we do about wives for those who remain, since the women of Benjamin have been destroyed?” ¹⁷They added, “There must be heirs for the survivors of Benjamin, so that a tribe of Israel will not be wiped out. ¹⁸But we cannot give them our daughters as wives.” For the Israelites had sworn, “Cursed is he who gives a wife to a Benjamite.” ¹⁹“But look,” they said, “there is a yearly feast to the LORD in Shiloh, which is north of Bethel east of the road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.” ²⁰So they commanded the Benjamites: “Go, hide in the vineyards ²¹and watch. When you see the daughters of Shiloh come out to perform their dances, each of you is to come out of the vineyards, catch for himself a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin. ²²When their fathers or brothers come to us to complain, we will tell them, ‘Do us a favor by helping them, since we did not get wives for each of them in the war. Since you did not actually give them your daughters, you have no guilt.’” ²³The Benjamites did as instructed and carried away the number of women they needed from the dancers they caught. They went back to their own inheritance, rebuilt their cities, and settled in them. ²⁴And at that time, each of the Israelites returned from there to his own tribe and clan, each to his own inheritance. ²⁵In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

1In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man from Bethlehem in Judah, with his wife and two sons, went to reside in the land of Moab. ²The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah, and they entered the land of Moab and settled there. ³Then Naomi’s husband Elimelech died, and she was left with her two sons, ⁴who took Moabite women as their wives, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. And after they had lived in Moab about ten years, ⁵both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and without her husband. ⁶When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab. ⁷Accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road leading back to the land of Judah. ⁸Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you loving devotion, as you have shown to your dead and to me. ⁹May the LORD enable each of you to find rest in the home of your new husband.” And she kissed them as they wept aloud ¹⁰and said, “Surely we will return with you to your people.” ¹¹But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb to become your husbands? ¹²Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons, ¹³would you wait for them to grow up? Would you refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, it grieves me very much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.” ¹⁴Again they wept aloud, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. ¹⁵“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; follow her back home.” ¹⁶But Ruth replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. ¹⁷Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me, and ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” ¹⁸When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her. ¹⁹So Naomi and Ruth traveled until they came to Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, the whole city was stirred because of them, and the women of the city exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” ²⁰“Do not call me Naomi,” she replied. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has dealt quite bitterly with me. ²¹I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? After all, the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me.” ²²So Naomi returned from the land of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. And they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.