Day 269 reading

Wisdom·Proverbs 1:19–27

¹⁹Such is the fate of all who are greedy, whose unjust gain takes the lives of its possessors. ²⁰Wisdom calls out in the street, she lifts her voice in the square; ²¹in the main concourse she cries aloud, at the city gates she makes her speech: ²²“How long, O simple ones, will you love your simple ways? How long will scoffers delight in their scorn and fools hate knowledge? ²³If you had repented at my rebuke, then surely I would have poured out my spirit on you; I would have made my words known to you. ²⁴Because you refused my call, and no one took my outstretched hand, ²⁵because you neglected all my counsel, and wanted none of my correction, ²⁶in turn I will mock your calamity; I will sneer when terror strikes you, ²⁷when your dread comes like a storm, and your destruction like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish overwhelm you.

New Testament·2 Corinthians 11

¹I hope you will bear with a little of my foolishness, but you are already doing that. ²I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. For I promised you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. ³I am afraid, however, that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may be led astray from your simple and pure devotion to Christ. ⁴For if someone comes and proclaims a Jesus other than the One we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit than the One you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, you put up with it way too easily. ⁵I consider myself in no way inferior to those “super-apostles.” ⁶Although I am not a polished speaker, I am certainly not lacking in knowledge. We have made this clear to you in every way possible. ⁷Was it a sin for me to humble myself in order to exalt you, because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge? ⁸I robbed other churches by accepting their support in order to serve you. ⁹And when I was with you and in need, I was not a burden to anyone; for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs. I have refrained from being a burden to you in any way, and I will continue to do so. ¹⁰As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. ¹¹Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do! ¹²But I will keep on doing what I am doing, in order to undercut those who want an opportunity to be regarded as our equals in the things of which they boast. ¹³For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. ¹⁵It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their actions. ¹⁶I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then receive me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. ¹⁷In this confident boasting of mine, I am not speaking as the Lord would, but as a fool. ¹⁸Since many are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast. ¹⁹For you gladly tolerate fools, since you are so wise. ²⁰In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or exalts himself or strikes you in the face. ²¹To my shame I concede that we were too weak for that! Speaking as a fool, however, I can match what anyone else dares to boast about. ²²Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. ²³Are they servants of Christ? I am speaking like I am out of my mind, but I am so much more: in harder labor, in more imprisonments, in worse beatings, in frequent danger of death. ²⁴Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. ²⁵Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea. ²⁶In my frequent journeys, I have been in danger from rivers and from bandits, in danger from my countrymen and from the Gentiles, in danger in the city and in the country, in danger on the sea and among false brothers, ²⁷in labor and toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food, in cold and exposure. ²⁸Apart from these external trials, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. ²⁹Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not burn with grief? ³⁰If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. ³¹The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is forever worthy of praise, knows that I am not lying. ³²In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas secured the city of the Damascenes in order to arrest me. ³³But I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his grasp.

Old Testament·Isaiah 11–14

¹Then a shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots will bear fruit. ²The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD. ³And He will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what His eyes see, and He will not decide by what His ears hear, ⁴but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and with equity He will decide for the lowly of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of His lips. ⁵Righteousness will be the belt around His hips, and faithfulness the sash around His waist. ⁶The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat; the calf and young lion and fatling will be together, and a little child will lead them. ⁷The cow will graze with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. ⁸The infant will play by the cobra’s den, and the toddler will reach into the viper’s nest. ⁹They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the sea is full of water. ¹⁰On that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples. The nations will seek Him, and His place of rest will be glorious. ¹¹On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover the remnant of His people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. ¹²He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth. ¹³Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, and the adversaries of Judah will be cut off. Ephraim will no longer envy Judah, nor will Judah harass Ephraim. ¹⁴They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines to the west; together they will plunder the sons of the east. They will lay their hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them. ¹⁵The LORD will devote to destruction the gulf of the Sea of Egypt; with a scorching wind He will sweep His hand over the Euphrates. He will split it into seven streams for men to cross with dry sandals. ¹⁶There will be a highway for the remnant of His people who remain from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

12In that day you will say: “O LORD, I will praise You. Although You were angry with me, Your anger has turned away, and You have comforted me. ²Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. For the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.” ³With joy you will draw water from the springs of salvation, ⁴and on that day you will say: “Give praise to the LORD; proclaim His name! Make His works known among the peoples; declare that His name is exalted. ⁵Sing to the LORD, for He has done glorious things. Let this be known in all the earth. ⁶Cry out and sing, O citizen of Zion, for great among you is the Holy One of Israel.”

13This is the burden against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz received: ²Raise a banner on a barren hilltop; call aloud to them. Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles. ³I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph. ⁴Listen, a tumult on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations gathered together! The LORD of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war. ⁵They are coming from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens— the LORD and the weapons of His wrath— to destroy the whole country. ⁶Wail, for the Day of the LORD is near; it will come as destruction from the Almighty. ⁷Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt. ⁸Terror, pain, and anguish will seize them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at one another, their faces flushed with fear. ⁹Behold, the Day of the LORD is coming— cruel, with fury and burning anger— to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners within it. ¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light. ¹¹I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will end the haughtiness of the arrogant and lay low the pride of the ruthless. ¹²I will make man scarcer than pure gold, and mankind rarer than the gold of Ophir. ¹³Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken from its place at the wrath of the LORD of Hosts on the day of His burning anger. ¹⁴Like a hunted gazelle, like a sheep without a shepherd, each will return to his own people, each will flee to his native land. ¹⁵Whoever is caught will be stabbed, and whoever is captured will die by the sword. ¹⁶Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished. ¹⁷Behold, I will stir up against them the Medes, who have no regard for silver and no desire for gold. ¹⁸Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children. ¹⁹And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms, the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁰She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there. ²¹But desert creatures will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will leap about. ²²Hyenas will howl in her fortresses and jackals in her luxurious palaces. Babylon’s time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged.

14For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob; once again He will choose Israel and settle them in their own land. The foreigner will join them and unite with the house of Jacob. ²The nations will escort Israel and bring it to its homeland. Then the house of Israel will possess the nations as menservants and maidservants in the LORD’s land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors. ³On the day that the LORD gives you rest from your pain and torment, and from the hard labor into which you were forced, ⁴you will sing this song of contempt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased, and how his fury has ended! ⁵The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers. ⁶It struck the peoples in anger with unceasing blows; it subdued the nations in rage with relentless persecution. ⁷All the earth is at peace and at rest; they break out in song. ⁸Even the cypresses and cedars of Lebanon exult over you: “Since you have been laid low, no woodcutter comes against us.” ⁹Sheol beneath is eager to meet you upon your arrival. It stirs the spirits of the dead to greet you— all the rulers of the earth. It makes all the kings of the nations rise from their thrones. ¹⁰They will all respond to you, saying, “You too have become weak, as we are; you have become like us!” ¹¹Your pomp has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Maggots are your bed and worms your blanket. ¹²How you have fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the ground, O destroyer of nations. ¹³You said in your heart: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north. ¹⁴I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” ¹⁵But you will be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. ¹⁶Those who see you will stare; they will ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made the kingdoms tremble, ¹⁷who turned the world into a desert and destroyed its cities, who refused to let the captives return to their homes?” ¹⁸All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb. ¹⁹But you are cast out of your grave like a rejected branch, covered by those slain with the sword, and dumped into a rocky pit like a carcass trampled underfoot. ²⁰You will not join them in burial, since you have destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of the wicked will never again be mentioned. ²¹Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the iniquities of their forefathers. They will never rise up to possess a land or cover the earth with their cities. ²²“I will rise up against them,” declares the LORD of Hosts. “I will cut off from Babylon her name and her remnant, her offspring and her posterity,” declares the LORD. ²³“I will make her a place for owls and for swamplands; I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of Hosts. ²⁴The LORD of Hosts has sworn: “Surely, as I have planned, so will it be; as I have purposed, so will it stand. ²⁵I will break Assyria in My land; I will trample him on My mountain. His yoke will be taken off My people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.” ²⁶This is the plan devised for the whole earth, and this is the hand stretched out over all the nations. ²⁷The LORD of Hosts has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is outstretched, so who can turn it back? ²⁸In the year that King Ahaz died, this burden was received: ²⁹Do not rejoice, all you Philistines, that the rod that struck you is broken. For a viper will spring from the root of the snake, and a flying serpent from its egg. ³⁰Then the firstborn of the poor will find pasture, and the needy will lie down in safety, but I will kill your root by famine, and your remnant will be slain. ³¹Wail, O gate! Cry out, O city! Melt away, all you Philistines! For a cloud of smoke comes from the north, and there are no stragglers in its ranks. ³²What answer will be given to the envoys of that nation? “The LORD has founded Zion, where His afflicted people will find refuge.”