Day 284 reading

Wisdom·Proverbs 6:16–26

¹⁶There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to Him: ¹⁷haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, ¹⁸a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that run swiftly to evil, ¹⁹a false witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up discord among brothers. ²⁰My son, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. ²¹Bind them always upon your heart; tie them around your neck. ²²When you walk, they will guide you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you. ²³For this commandment is a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way to life, ²⁴to keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress. ²⁵Do not lust in your heart for her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes. ²⁶For the levy of the prostitute is poverty, and the adulteress preys upon your very life.

New Testament·Ephesians 5:14–33

¹⁴So it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” ¹⁵Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶redeeming the time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. ¹⁸Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to reckless indiscretion. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. ¹⁹Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord, ²⁰always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. ²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her ²⁶to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷and to present her to Himself as a glorious church, without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church. ³⁰For we are members of His body. ³¹“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³²This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church. ³³Nevertheless, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Old Testament·Isaiah 52–55

¹Awake, awake, clothe yourself with strength, O Zion! Put on your garments of splendor, O Jerusalem, holy city! For the uncircumcised and unclean will no longer enter you. ²Shake off your dust! Rise up and sit on your throne, O Jerusalem. Remove the chains from your neck, O captive Daughter of Zion. ³For this is what the LORD says: “You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed.” ⁴For this is what the Lord GOD says: “At first My people went down to Egypt to live, then Assyria oppressed them without cause. ⁵And now what have I here? declares the LORD. For My people have been taken without cause; those who rule them taunt, declares the LORD, and My name is blasphemed continually all day long. ⁶Therefore My people will know My name; therefore they will know on that day that I am He who speaks. Here I am!” ⁷How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” ⁸Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, together they shout for joy. For every eye will see when the LORD returns to Zion. ⁹Break forth in joy, sing together, O ruins of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted His people; He has redeemed Jerusalem. ¹⁰The LORD has bared His holy arm in the sight of all the nations; all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. ¹¹Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing; come out from it, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the LORD. ¹²For you will not leave in a hurry nor flee in haste, for the LORD goes before you, and the God of Israel is your rear guard. ¹³Behold, My Servant will prosper; He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. ¹⁴Just as many were appalled at Him — His appearance was disfigured beyond that of any man, and His form was marred beyond human likeness— ¹⁵so He will sprinkle many nations. Kings will shut their mouths because of Him. For they will see what they have not been told, and they will understand what they have not heard.

53Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? ²He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him. ³He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. ⁴Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted. ⁵But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. ⁶We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. ⁷He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. ⁸By oppression and judgment He was taken away, and who can recount His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living; He was stricken for the transgression of My people. ⁹He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. ¹⁰Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and to cause Him to suffer; and when His soul is made a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. ¹¹After the anguish of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. ¹²Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He has poured out His life unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

54“Shout for joy, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth in song and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD. ²“Enlarge the site of your tent, stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, do not hold back. Lengthen your ropes and drive your stakes in deep. ³For you will spread out to the right and left; your descendants will dispossess the nations and inhabit the desolate cities. ⁴Do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame; do not be intimidated, for you will not be humiliated. For you will forget the shame of your youth and will remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. ⁵For your husband is your Maker— the LORD of Hosts is His name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth. ⁶For the LORD has called you back, like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit, like the rejected wife of one’s youth,” says your God. ⁷“For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will bring you back. ⁸In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer. ⁹“For to Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you or rebuke you. ¹⁰Though the mountains may be removed and the hills may be shaken, My loving devotion will not depart from you, and My covenant of peace will not be broken,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. ¹¹“O afflicted city, lashed by storms, without solace, surely I will set your stones in antimony and lay your foundations with sapphires. ¹²I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. ¹³Then all your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be their prosperity. ¹⁴In righteousness you will be established, far from oppression, for you will have no fear. Terror will be far removed, for it will not come near you. ¹⁵If anyone attacks you, it is not from Me; whoever assails you will fall before you. ¹⁶Behold, I have created the craftsman who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its task; and I have created the destroyer to wreak havoc. ¹⁷No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their vindication is from Me,” declares the LORD.

55“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you without money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost! ²Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of foods. ³Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant— My loving devotion promised to David. ⁴Behold, I have made him a witness to the nations, a leader and commander of the peoples. ⁵Surely you will summon a nation you do not know, and nations who do not know you will run to you. For the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, has bestowed glory on you.” ⁶Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near. ⁷Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon. ⁸“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. ⁹“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return without watering the earth, making it bud and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat, ¹¹so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and it will prosper where I send it. ¹²You will indeed go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. ¹³Instead of the thornbush, a cypress will grow, and instead of the brier, a myrtle will spring up; they will make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign, never to be destroyed.”