Day 239 reading

Wisdom·Psalms 130–131

¹Out of the depths I cry to You, O LORD! ²O Lord, hear my voice; let Your ears be attentive to my plea for mercy. ³If You, O LORD, kept track of iniquities, then who, O Lord, could stand? ⁴But with You there is forgiveness, so that You may be feared. ⁵I wait for the LORD; my soul does wait, and in His word I put my hope. ⁶My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning— more than watchmen wait for the morning. ⁷O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is loving devotion, and with Him is redemption in abundance. ⁸And He will redeem Israel from all iniquity.

131My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty. I do not aspire to great things or matters too lofty for me. ²Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. ³O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, both now and forevermore.

New Testament·Romans 16

¹I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea. ²Welcome her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her with anything she may need from you. For she has been a great help to many people, including me. ³Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, ⁴who have risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. ⁵Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my beloved Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia. ⁶Greet Mary, who has worked very hard for you. ⁷Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow countrymen and fellow prisoners. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. ⁸Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. ⁹Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. ¹⁰Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus. ¹¹Greet Herodion, my fellow countryman. Greet those from the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord. ¹²Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, women who have worked hard in the Lord. Greet my beloved Persis, who has worked very hard in the Lord. ¹³Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. ¹⁴Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers with them. ¹⁵Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and all the saints with them. ¹⁶Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send you greetings. ¹⁷Now I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Turn away from them. ¹⁸For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. ¹⁹Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. ²⁰The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. ²¹Timothy, my fellow worker, sends you greetings, as do Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my fellow countrymen. ²²I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord. ²³Gaius, who has hosted me and all the church, sends you greetings. Erastus, the city treasurer, sends you greetings, as does our brother Quartus. ²⁵Now to Him who is able to strengthen you by my gospel and by the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery concealed for ages past ²⁶but now revealed and made known through the writings of the prophets by the command of the eternal God, in order to lead all nations to the obedience that comes from faith — ²⁷to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Old Testament·Job 2–4

¹On another day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them to present himself before Him. ²“Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan. “From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.” ³Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.” ⁴“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life. ⁵But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.” ⁶“Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “He is in your hands, but you must spare his life.” ⁷So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. ⁸And Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself as he sat among the ashes. ⁹Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!” ¹⁰“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. ¹¹Now when Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—heard about all this adversity that had come upon him, each of them came from his home, and they met together to go and sympathize with Job and comfort him. ¹²When they lifted up their eyes from afar, they could barely recognize Job. They began to weep aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust in the air over his head. ¹³Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw how intense his suffering was.

3After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. ²And this is what he said: ³“May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, ‘A boy is conceived.’ ⁴If only that day had turned to darkness! May God above disregard it; may no light shine upon it. ⁵May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it; may the blackness of the day overwhelm it. ⁶If only darkness had taken that night away! May it not appear among the days of the year; may it never be entered in any of the months. ⁷Behold, may that night be barren; may no joyful voice come into it. ⁸May it be cursed by those who curse the day — those prepared to rouse Leviathan. ⁹May its morning stars grow dark; may it wait in vain for daylight; may it not see the breaking of dawn. ¹⁰For that night did not shut the doors of the womb to hide the sorrow from my eyes. ¹¹Why did I not perish at birth; why did I not die as I came from the womb? ¹²Why were there knees to receive me, and breasts that I should be nursed? ¹³For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest ¹⁴with kings and counselors of the earth, who built for themselves cities now in ruins, ¹⁵or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. ¹⁶Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child, like an infant who never sees daylight? ¹⁷There the wicked cease from raging, and there the weary find rest. ¹⁸The captives enjoy their ease; they do not hear the voice of the oppressor. ¹⁹Both small and great are there, and the slave is freed from his master. ²⁰Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter of soul, ²¹who long for death that does not come, and search for it like hidden treasure, ²²who rejoice and greatly exult when they can find the grave? ²³Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? ²⁴I sigh when food is put before me, and my groans pour out like water. ²⁵For the thing I feared has overtaken me, and what I dreaded has befallen me. ²⁶I am not at ease or quiet; I have no rest, for trouble has come.”

4Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied: ²“If one ventures a word with you, will you be wearied? Yet who can keep from speaking? ³Surely you have instructed many, and have strengthened their feeble hands. ⁴Your words have steadied those who stumbled; you have braced the knees that were buckling. ⁵But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary. It strikes you, and you are dismayed. ⁶Is your reverence not your confidence, and the uprightness of your ways your hope? ⁷Consider now, I plead: Who, being innocent, has ever perished? Or where have the upright been destroyed? ⁸As I have observed, those who plow iniquity and those who sow trouble reap the same. ⁹By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of His anger they are consumed. ¹⁰The lion may roar, and the fierce lion may growl, yet the teeth of the young lions are broken. ¹¹The old lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered. ¹²Now a word came to me secretly; my ears caught a whisper of it. ¹³In disquieting visions in the night, when deep sleep falls on men, ¹⁴fear and trembling came over me and made all my bones shudder. ¹⁵Then a spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body bristled. ¹⁶It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance; a form loomed before my eyes, and I heard a whispering voice: ¹⁷‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God, or a man more pure than his Maker? ¹⁸If God puts no trust in His servants, and He charges His angels with error, ¹⁹how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth! ²⁰They are smashed to pieces from dawn to dusk; unnoticed, they perish forever. ²¹Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’