Day 276 reading

Wisdom·Proverbs 3:29–35

²⁹Do not devise evil against your neighbor, for he trustfully dwells beside you. ³⁰Do not accuse a man without cause, when he has done you no harm. ³¹Do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways; ³²for the LORD detests the perverse, but He is a friend to the upright. ³³The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the righteous. ³⁴He mocks the mockers, but gives grace to the humble. ³⁵The wise will inherit honor, but fools are held up to shame.

New Testament·Galatians 4:13–31

¹³You know that it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. ¹⁴And although my illness was a trial to you, you did not despise or reject me. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus Himself. ¹⁵What then has become of your blessing? For I can testify that, if it were possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. ¹⁶Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? ¹⁷Those people are zealous for you, but not in a good way. Instead, they want to isolate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them. ¹⁸Nevertheless, it is good to be zealous if it serves a noble purpose—at any time, and not only when I am with you. ¹⁹My children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, ²⁰how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you. ²¹Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not understand what the law says? ²²For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. ²³His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born through the promise. ²⁴These things serve as illustrations, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery: This is Hagar. ²⁵Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. ²⁶But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. ²⁷For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.” ²⁸Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. ²⁹At that time, however, the son born by the flesh persecuted the son born by the Spirit. It is the same now. ³⁰But what does the Scripture say? “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” ³¹Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Old Testament·Isaiah 33–34

¹Woe to you, O destroyer never destroyed, O traitor never betrayed! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed. When you have finished betraying, you will be betrayed. ²O LORD, be gracious to us! We wait for You. Be our strength every morning and our salvation in time of trouble. ³The peoples flee the thunder of Your voice; the nations scatter when You rise. ⁴Your spoil, O nations, is gathered as by locusts; like a swarm of locusts men sweep over it. ⁵The LORD is exalted, for He dwells on high; He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness. ⁶He will be the sure foundation for your times, a storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the LORD is Zion’s treasure. ⁷Behold, their valiant ones cry aloud in the streets; the envoys of peace weep bitterly. ⁸The highways are deserted; travel has ceased. The treaty has been broken, the witnesses are despised, and human life is disregarded. ⁹The land mourns and languishes; Lebanon is ashamed and decayed. Sharon is like a desert; Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves. ¹⁰“Now I will arise,” says the LORD. “Now I will lift Myself up. Now I will be exalted. ¹¹You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will consume you. ¹²The peoples will be burned to ashes, like thorns cut down and set ablaze. ¹³You who are far off, hear what I have done; you who are near, acknowledge My might.” ¹⁴The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling grips the ungodly: “Who of us can dwell with a consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting flames?” ¹⁵He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, who refuses gain from extortion, whose hand never takes a bribe, who stops his ears against murderous plots and shuts his eyes tightly against evil— ¹⁶he will dwell on the heights; the mountain fortress will be his refuge; his food will be provided and his water assured. ¹⁷Your eyes will see the King in His beauty and behold a land that stretches afar. ¹⁸Your mind will ponder the former terror: “Where is he who tallies? Where is he who weighs? Where is he who counts the towers?” ¹⁹You will no longer see the insolent, a people whose speech is unintelligible, who stammer in a language you cannot understand. ²⁰Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful pasture, a tent that does not wander; its tent pegs will not be pulled up, nor will any of its cords be broken. ²¹But there the Majestic One, our LORD, will be for us a place of rivers and wide canals, where no galley with oars will row, and no majestic vessel will pass. ²²For the LORD is our Judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our King. It is He who will save us. ²³Your ropes are slack; they cannot secure the mast or spread the sail. Then an abundance of spoils will be divided, and even the lame will carry off plunder. ²⁴And no resident of Zion will say, “I am sick.” The people who dwell there will be forgiven of iniquity.

34Come near, O nations, to listen; pay attention, O peoples. Let the earth hear, and all that fills it, the world and all that springs from it. ²The LORD is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter. ³Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood. ⁴All the stars of heaven will be dissolved. The skies will be rolled up like a scroll, and all their stars will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like foliage from the fig tree. ⁵When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction. ⁶The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood. It drips with fat— with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom. ⁷And the wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil will be soaked with fat. ⁸For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. ⁹Edom’s streams will be turned to tar, and her soil to sulfur; her land will become a blazing pitch. ¹⁰It will not be quenched—day or night. Its smoke will ascend forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever again pass through it. ¹¹The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The LORD will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction. ¹²No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing. ¹³Her towers will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She will become a haunt for jackals, an abode for ostriches. ¹⁴The desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and one wild goat will call to another. There the night creature will settle and find her place of repose. ¹⁵There the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate. ¹⁶Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of these will go missing, not one will lack her mate, because He has ordered it by His mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit. ¹⁷He has allotted their portion; His hand has distributed it by measure. They will possess it forever; they will dwell in it from generation to generation.