Day 224 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 119:105–113

¹⁰⁵Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. ¹⁰⁶I have sworn and confirmed that I will keep Your righteous judgments. ¹⁰⁷I am severely afflicted, O LORD; revive me through Your word. ¹⁰⁸Accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, and teach me Your judgments. ¹⁰⁹I constantly take my life in my hands, yet I do not forget Your law. ¹¹⁰The wicked have set a snare for me, but I have not strayed from Your precepts. ¹¹¹Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart. ¹¹²I have inclined my heart to perform Your statutes, even to the very end. ¹¹³The double-minded I despise, but Your law I love.

New Testament·Romans 3:21–4:10

²¹But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, as attested by the Law and the Prophets. ²²And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction, ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. ²⁵God presented Him as the atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand. ²⁶He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus. ²⁷Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of works? No, but on that of faith. ²⁸For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. ²⁹Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, ³⁰since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. ³¹Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Certainly not! Instead, we uphold the law.

4What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, has discovered? ²If Abraham was indeed justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. ³For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” ⁴Now the wages of the worker are not credited as a gift, but as an obligation. ⁵However, to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. ⁶And David speaks likewise of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: ⁷“Blessed are they whose lawless acts are forgiven, whose sins are covered. ⁸Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.” ⁹Is this blessing only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. ¹⁰In what context was it credited? Was it after his circumcision, or before? It was not after, but before.

Old Testament·Ezra 3–4

¹By the seventh month, the Israelites had settled in their towns, and the people assembled as one man in Jerusalem. ²Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests, along with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates, began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. ³They set up the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD—both the morning and evening burnt offerings—even though they feared the people of the land. ⁴They also celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles in accordance with what is written, and they offered burnt offerings daily based on the number prescribed for each day. ⁵After that, they presented the regular burnt offerings and those for New Moons and for all the appointed sacred feasts of the LORD, as well as all the freewill offerings brought to the LORD. ⁶On the first day of the seventh month, the Israelites began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD, although the foundation of the temple of the LORD had not been laid. ⁷They gave money to the masons and carpenters, and food and drink and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre to bring cedar logs from Lebanon to Joppa by sea, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia. ⁸In the second month of the second year after they had arrived at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, and the rest of their associates including the priests, the Levites, and all who had returned to Jerusalem from the captivity, began the work. They appointed Levites twenty years of age or older to supervise the construction of the house of the LORD. ⁹So Jeshua and his sons and brothers, Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Yehudah), and the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers—all Levites—joined together to supervise those working on the house of God. ¹⁰When the builders had laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their positions to praise the LORD, as David king of Israel had prescribed. ¹¹And they sang responsively with praise and thanksgiving to the LORD: “For He is good; for His loving devotion to Israel endures forever.” Then all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD had been laid. ¹²But many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple. Still, many others shouted joyfully. ¹³The people could not distinguish the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people were making so much noise. And the sound was heard from afar.

4When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the LORD, the God of Israel, ²they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of the families, saying, “Let us build with you because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to Him since the time of King Esar-haddon of Assyria, who brought us here.” ³But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the other heads of the families of Israel replied, “You have no part with us in building a house for our God, since we alone must build it for the LORD, the God of Israel, as Cyrus king of Persia has commanded us.” ⁴Then the people of the land set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to build. ⁵They hired counselors against them to frustrate their plans throughout the reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia. ⁶At the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, an accusation was lodged against the people of Judah and Jerusalem. ⁷And in the days of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his associates wrote a letter to Artaxerxes. It was written in Aramaic and then translated. ⁸Rehum the commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote the letter against Jerusalem to King Artaxerxes as follows: ⁹From Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of their associates—the judges and officials over Tripolis, Persia, Erech and Babylon, the Elamites of Susa, ¹⁰and the rest of the peoples whom the great and honorable Ashurbanipal deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and elsewhere west of the Euphrates. ¹¹(This is the text of the letter they sent to him.) To King Artaxerxes, From your servants, the men west of the Euphrates: ¹²Let it be known to the king that the Jews who came from you to us have returned to Jerusalem. And they are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city, restoring its walls, and repairing its foundations. ¹³Let it now be known to the king that if that city is rebuilt and its walls are restored, they will not pay tribute, duty, or toll, and the royal treasury will suffer. ¹⁴Now because we are in the service of the palace and it is not fitting for us to allow the king to be dishonored, we have sent to inform the king ¹⁵that a search should be made of the record books of your fathers. In these books you will discover and verify that the city is a rebellious city, harmful to kings and provinces, inciting sedition from ancient times. That is why this city was destroyed. ¹⁶We advise the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are restored, you will have no dominion west of the Euphrates. ¹⁷Then the king sent this reply: To Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and the rest of your associates living in Samaria and elsewhere in the region west of the Euphrates: Greetings. ¹⁸The letter you sent us has been translated and read in my presence. ¹⁹I issued a decree, and a search was conducted. It was discovered that this city has revolted against kings from ancient times, engaging in rebellion and sedition. ²⁰And mighty kings have ruled over Jerusalem and exercised authority over the whole region west of the Euphrates; and tribute, duty, and toll were paid to them. ²¹Now, therefore, issue an order for these men to stop, so that this city will not be rebuilt until I so order. ²²See that you do not neglect this matter. Why allow this threat to increase and the royal interests to suffer? ²³When the text of the letter from King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum, Shimshai the scribe, and their associates, they went immediately to the Jews in Jerusalem and forcibly stopped them. ²⁴Thus the construction of the house of God in Jerusalem ceased, and it remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.