Day 230 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 119:160–168

¹⁶⁰The entirety of Your word is truth, and all Your righteous judgments endure forever. ¹⁶¹Rulers persecute me without cause, but my heart fears only Your word. ¹⁶²I rejoice in Your promise like one who finds great spoil. ¹⁶³I hate and abhor falsehood, but Your law I love. ¹⁶⁴Seven times a day I praise You for Your righteous judgments. ¹⁶⁵Abundant peace belongs to those who love Your instruction; nothing can make them stumble. ¹⁶⁶I wait for Your salvation, O LORD, and I carry out Your commandments. ¹⁶⁷I obey Your testimonies and love them greatly. ¹⁶⁸I obey Your precepts and Your testimonies, for all my ways are before You.

New Testament·Romans 8:26–39

²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. ²⁷And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. ³¹What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God—and He is interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶As it is written: “For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Old Testament·Nehemiah 6:1–7:38

¹When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left—though to that time I had not yet installed the doors in the gates— ²Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” But they were planning to harm me. ³So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it to go down to you?” ⁴Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave the same reply. ⁵The fifth time, Sanballat sent me this same message by his young servant, who had in his hand an unsealed letter ⁶that read: “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem agrees—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and this is why you are building the wall. According to these reports, you are to become their king, ⁷and you have even appointed prophets in Jerusalem to proclaim on your behalf: ‘There is a king in Judah.’ Soon these rumors will reach the ears of the king. So come, let us confer together.” ⁸Then I sent him this reply: “There is nothing to these rumors you are spreading; you are inventing them in your own mind.” ⁹For they were all trying to frighten us, saying, “Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will never be finished.” But now, my God, strengthen my hands. ¹⁰Later, I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his house. He said: “Let us meet at the house of God inside the temple. Let us shut the temple doors because they are coming to kill you— by night they are coming to kill you!” ¹¹But I replied, “Should a man like me run away? Should one like me go into the temple to save his own life? I will not go!” ¹²I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had uttered this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. ¹³He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would sin by doing as he suggested, so they could give me a bad name in order to discredit me. ¹⁴O my God, remember Tobiah and Sanballat for what they have done, and also Noadiah the prophetess and the other prophets who tried to intimidate me. ¹⁵So the wall was completed in fifty-two days, on the twenty-fifth of Elul. ¹⁶When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and disheartened, for they realized that this task had been accomplished by our God. ¹⁷Also in those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came back to them. ¹⁸For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, since he was a son-in-law of Shecaniah son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah. ¹⁹Moreover, these nobles kept reporting to me Tobiah’s good deeds, and they relayed my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me.

7When the wall had been rebuilt and I had set the doors in place, the gatekeepers, singers, and Levites were appointed. ²Then I put my brother Hanani in charge of Jerusalem, along with Hananiah the commander of the fortress, because he was a faithful man who feared God more than most. ³And I told them, “Do not open the gates of Jerusalem until the sun is hot. While the guards are on duty, keep the doors shut and securely fastened. And appoint the residents of Jerusalem as guards, some at their posts and some at their own homes.” ⁴Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt. ⁵Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials, and the people to be enrolled by genealogy. I found the genealogical register of those who had first returned, and I found the following written in it: ⁶These are the people of the province who came up from the captivity of the exiles carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar its king. They returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his own town, ⁷accompanied by Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, and Baanah. This is the count of the men of Israel: ⁸the descendants of Parosh, 2,172; ⁹the descendants of Shephatiah, 372; ¹⁰the descendants of Arah, 652; ¹¹the descendants of Pahath-moab (through the line of Jeshua and Joab), 2,818; ¹²the descendants of Elam, 1,254; ¹³the descendants of Zattu, 845; ¹⁴the descendants of Zaccai, 760; ¹⁵the descendants of Binnui, 648; ¹⁶the descendants of Bebai, 628; ¹⁷the descendants of Azgad, 2,322; ¹⁸the descendants of Adonikam, 667; ¹⁹the descendants of Bigvai, 2,067; ²⁰the descendants of Adin, 655; ²¹the descendants of Ater (through Hezekiah), 98; ²²the descendants of Hashum, 328; ²³the descendants of Bezai, 324; ²⁴the descendants of Hariph, 112; ²⁵the descendants of Gibeon, 95; ²⁶the men of Bethlehem and Netophah, 188; ²⁷the men of Anathoth, 128; ²⁸the men of Beth-azmaveth, 42; ²⁹the men of Kiriath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, 743; ³⁰the men of Ramah and Geba, 621; ³¹the men of Michmash, 122; ³²the men of Bethel and Ai, 123; ³³the men of the other Nebo, 52; ³⁴the descendants of the other Elam, 1,254; ³⁵the descendants of Harim, 320; ³⁶the men of Jericho, 345; ³⁷the men of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, 721; ³⁸and the descendants of Senaah, 3,930.