Day 14 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 11

¹In the LORD I take refuge. How then can you say to me: “Flee like a bird to your mountain! ²For behold, the wicked bend their bows. They set their arrow on the string to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart. ³If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” ⁴The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD is on His heavenly throne. His eyes are watching closely; they examine the sons of men. ⁵The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked; His soul hates the lover of violence. ⁶On the wicked He will rain down fiery coals and sulfur; a scorching wind will be their portion. ⁷For the LORD is righteous; He loves justice. The upright will see His face.

New Testament·Matthew 10:11–32

¹¹Whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy there and stay at his house until you move on. ¹²As you enter the home, greet its occupants. ¹³If the home is worthy, let your peace rest on it; but if it is not, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴And if anyone will not welcome you or heed your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. ¹⁵Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. ¹⁶Behold, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. ¹⁷But beware of men; for they will hand you over to their councils and flog you in their synagogues. ¹⁸On My account, you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. ¹⁹But when they hand you over, do not worry about how to respond or what to say. In that hour you will be given what to say. ²⁰For it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. ²¹Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rise against their parents and have them put to death. ²²You will be hated by everyone because of My name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved. ²³When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. Truly I tell you, you will not reach all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. ²⁴A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. ²⁵It is enough for a disciple to be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household! ²⁶So do not be afraid of them. For there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, and nothing hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. ³⁰And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. ³²Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father in heaven.

Old Testament·Genesis 26–27

¹Now there was another famine in the land, subsequent to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines at Gerar. ²The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Settle in the land where I tell you. ³Stay in this land as a foreigner, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, ⁵because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” ⁶So Isaac settled in Gerar. ⁷But when the men of that place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister.” For he was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” since he thought to himself, “The men of this place will kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is so beautiful.” ⁸When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. ⁹Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac replied, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.” ¹⁰“What is this you have done to us?” asked Abimelech. “One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us.” ¹¹So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, “Whoever harms this man or his wife will surely be put to death.” ¹²Now Isaac sowed seed in the land, and that very year he reaped a hundredfold. And the LORD blessed him, ¹³and he became richer and richer, until he was exceedingly wealthy. ¹⁴He owned so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. ¹⁵So the Philistines took dirt and stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham. ¹⁶Then Abimelech said to Isaac, “Depart from us, for you are much too powerful for us.” ¹⁷So Isaac left that place and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. ¹⁸Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. And he gave these wells the same names his father had given them. ¹⁹Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of fresh water there. ²⁰But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek, because they contended with him. ²¹Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. ²²He moved on from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “At last the LORD has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.” ²³From there Isaac went up to Beersheba, ²⁴and that night the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for the sake of My servant Abraham.” ²⁵So Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD, and he pitched his tent there. His servants also dug a well there. ²⁶Later, Abimelech came to Isaac from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army. ²⁷“Why have you come to me?” Isaac asked them. “You hated me and sent me away.” ²⁸“We can plainly see that the LORD has been with you,” they replied. “We recommend that there should now be an oath between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you ²⁹that you will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you but have done only good to you, sending you on your way in peace. And now you are blessed by the LORD.” ³⁰So Isaac prepared a feast for them, and they ate and drank. ³¹And they got up early the next morning and swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace. ³²On that same day, Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. “We have found water!” they told him. ³³So he called it Shibah, and to this day the name of the city is Beersheba. ³⁴When Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. ³⁵And they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah.

27When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” Esau replied. ²“Look,” said Isaac, “I am now old, and I do not know the day of my death. ³Take your weapons—your quiver and bow—and go out into the field to hunt some game for me. ⁴Then prepare a tasty dish that I love and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.” ⁵Now Rebekah was listening to what Isaac told his son Esau. So when Esau went into the field to hunt game and bring it back, ⁶Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “Behold, I overheard your father saying to your brother Esau, ⁷‘Bring me some game and prepare me a tasty dish to eat, so that I may bless you in the presence of the LORD before I die.’ ⁸Now, my son, listen to my voice and do exactly as I tell you. ⁹Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so that I can make them into a tasty dish for your father—the kind he loves. ¹⁰Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” ¹¹Jacob answered his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, but I am smooth-skinned. ¹²What if my father touches me? Then I would be revealed to him as a deceiver, and I would bring upon myself a curse rather than a blessing.” ¹³His mother replied, “Your curse be on me, my son. Just obey my voice and go get them for me.” ¹⁴So Jacob went and got two goats and brought them to his mother, who made the tasty food his father loved. ¹⁵And Rebekah took the finest clothes in the house that belonged to her older son Esau, and she put them on her younger son Jacob. ¹⁶She also put the skins of the young goats on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. ¹⁷Then she handed her son Jacob the tasty food and bread she had made. ¹⁸So Jacob went to his father and said, “My father.” “Here I am!” he answered. “Which one are you, my son?” ¹⁹Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau, your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may bless me.” ²⁰But Isaac asked his son, “How did you ever find it so quickly, my son?” “Because the LORD your God brought it to me,” he replied. ²¹Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come closer so I can touch you, my son. Are you really my son Esau, or not?” ²²So Jacob came close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” ²³Isaac did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him. ²⁴Again he asked, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he replied, “I am.” ²⁵“Serve me,” said Isaac, “and let me eat some of my son’s game, so that I may bless you.” Jacob brought it to him, and he ate; then he brought him wine, and he drank. ²⁶Then his father Isaac said to him, “Please come near and kiss me, my son.” ²⁷So he came near and kissed him. When Isaac smelled his clothing, he blessed him and said: “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed. ²⁸May God give to you the dew of heaven and the richness of the earth— an abundance of grain and new wine. ²⁹May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. May you be the master of your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be blessed.” ³⁰As soon as Isaac had finished blessing him and Jacob had left his father’s presence, his brother Esau returned from the hunt. ³¹He too made some tasty food, brought it to his father, and said to him, “My father, sit up and eat of your son’s game, so that you may bless me.” ³²But his father Isaac replied, “Who are you?” “I am Esau, your firstborn son,” he answered. ³³Isaac began to tremble violently and said, “Who was it, then, who hunted the game and brought it to me? Before you came in, I ate it all and blessed him—and indeed, he will be blessed!” ³⁴When Esau heard his father’s words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, O my father!” ³⁵But Isaac replied, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” ³⁶So Esau declared, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated me twice. He took my birthright, and now he has taken my blessing.” Then he asked, “Haven’t you saved a blessing for me?” ³⁷But Isaac answered Esau: “Look, I have made him your master and given him all his relatives as servants; I have sustained him with grain and new wine. What is left that I can do for you, my son?” ³⁸Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, O my father!” Then Esau wept aloud. ³⁹His father Isaac answered him: “Behold, your dwelling place shall be away from the richness of the land, away from the dew of heaven above. ⁴⁰You shall live by the sword and serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will tear his yoke from your neck.” ⁴¹Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. And Esau said in his heart, “The days of mourning for my father are at hand; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” ⁴²When the words of her older son Esau were relayed to Rebekah, she sent for her younger son Jacob and told him, “Look, your brother Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you. ⁴³So now, my son, obey my voice and flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran. ⁴⁴Stay with him for a while, until your brother’s fury subsides— ⁴⁵until your brother’s rage against you wanes and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send for you and bring you back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?” ⁴⁶Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a Hittite wife from among them, what good is my life?”