Day 289 reading

Wisdom·Proverbs 8:1–10

¹Does not wisdom call out, and understanding raise her voice? ²On the heights overlooking the road, at the crossroads she takes her stand. ³Beside the gates to the city, at the entrances she cries out: ⁴“To you, O men, I call out, and my cry is to the sons of men. ⁵O simple ones, learn to be shrewd; O fools, gain understanding. ⁶Listen, for I speak of noble things, and the opening of my lips will reveal right. ⁷For my mouth will speak the truth, and wickedness is detestable to my lips. ⁸All the words of my mouth are righteous; none are crooked or perverse. ⁹They are all plain to the discerning, and upright to those who find knowledge. ¹⁰Receive my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than pure gold.

New Testament·Philippians 3

¹Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. ²Watch out for those dogs, those workers of evil, those mutilators of the flesh! ³For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— ⁴though I myself could have such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to righteousness in the law, faultless. ⁷But whatever was gain to me I count as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸More than that, I count all things as loss compared to the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, ¹¹and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. ¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵All of us who are mature should embrace this point of view. And if you think differently about some issue, God will reveal this to you as well. ¹⁶Nevertheless, we must live up to what we have already attained. ¹⁷Join one another in following my example, brothers, and carefully observe those who walk according to the pattern we set for you. ¹⁸For as I have often told you before, and now say again even with tears: Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹who, by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself, will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.

Old Testament·Jeremiah 2–3

¹Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ²“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. ³Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her found themselves guilty; disaster came upon them,’” declares the LORD. ⁴Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all you families of the house of Israel. ⁵This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me, and followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves? ⁶They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?’ ⁷I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and bounty, but you came and defiled My land, and made My inheritance detestable. ⁸The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD?’ The experts in the law no longer knew Me, and the leaders rebelled against Me. The prophets prophesied by Baal and followed useless idols. ⁹Therefore, I will contend with you again, declares the LORD, and I will bring a case against your children’s children. ¹⁰Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and take a look; send to Kedar and consider carefully; see if there has ever been anything like this: ¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods, though they are no gods at all? Yet My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols. ¹²Be stunned by this, O heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled,” declares the LORD. ¹³“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns— broken cisterns that cannot hold water. ¹⁴Is Israel a slave? Was he born into slavery? Why then has he become prey? ¹⁵The young lions have roared at him; they have growled with a loud voice. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant. ¹⁶The men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head. ¹⁷Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the LORD your God when He led you in the way? ¹⁸Now what will you gain on your way to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What will you gain on your way to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates? ¹⁹Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Consider and realize how evil and bitter it is for you to forsake the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts. ²⁰“For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute. ²¹I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine? ²²Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord GOD. ²³“How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals’? Look at your behavior in the valley; acknowledge what you have done. You are a swift young she-camel galloping here and there, ²⁴a wild donkey at home in the wilderness, sniffing the wind in the heat of her desire. Who can restrain her passion? All who seek her need not weary themselves; in mating season they will find her. ²⁵You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, ‘It is hopeless! For I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’ ²⁶As the thief is ashamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced. They, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets ²⁷say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their backs to Me and not their faces, yet in the time of trouble they beg, ‘Rise up and save us!’ ²⁸But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them rise up in your time of trouble and save you if they can; for your gods are as numerous as your cities, O Judah. ²⁹Why do you bring a case against Me? You have all rebelled against Me,” declares the LORD. ³⁰“I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.” ³¹You people of this generation, consider the word of the LORD: “Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of dense darkness? Why do My people say, ‘We are free to roam; we will come to You no more’? ³²Does a maiden forget her jewelry or a bride her wedding sash? Yet My people have forgotten Me for days without number. ³³How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways. ³⁴Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things ³⁵you say, ‘I am innocent. Surely His anger will turn from me.’ Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’ ³⁶How unstable you are, constantly changing your ways! You will be disappointed by Egypt just as you were by Assyria. ³⁷Moreover, you will leave that place with your hands on your head, for the LORD has rejected those you trust; you will not prosper by their help.”

3“If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers— and you would return to Me?” declares the LORD. ²“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. ³Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed. ⁴Have you not just called to Me, ‘My Father, You are my friend from youth. ⁵Will He be angry forever? Will He be indignant to the end?’ This you have spoken, but you keep doing all the evil you can.” ⁶Now in the days of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every green tree to prostitute herself there. ⁷I thought that after she had done all these things, she would return to Me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. ⁸She saw that because faithless Israel had committed adultery, I gave her a certificate of divorce and sent her away. Yet that unfaithful sister Judah had no fear and prostituted herself as well. ⁹Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. ¹⁰Yet in spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the LORD. ¹¹And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than unfaithful Judah. ¹²Go, proclaim this message toward the north: ‘Return, O faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will no longer look on you with anger, for I am merciful,’ declares the LORD. ‘I will not be angry forever. ¹³Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God. You have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every green tree and have not obeyed My voice,’” declares the LORD. ¹⁴“Return, O faithless children,” declares the LORD, “for I am your master, and I will take you—one from a city and two from a family—and bring you to Zion. ¹⁵Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” ¹⁶“In those days, when you multiply and increase in the land,” declares the LORD, “they will no longer discuss the ark of the covenant of the LORD. It will never come to mind, and no one will remember it or miss it, nor will another one be made. ¹⁷At that time Jerusalem will be called The Throne of the LORD, and all the nations will be gathered in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD. They will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts. ¹⁸In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave to your fathers as an inheritance. ¹⁹Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me. ²⁰But as a woman may betray her husband, so you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD. ²¹A voice is heard on the barren heights, the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy, because they have perverted their ways and forgotten the LORD their God. ²²“Return, O faithless children, and I will heal your faithlessness.” “Here we are. We come to You, for You are the LORD our God. ²³Surely deception comes from the hills, and commotion from the mountains. Surely the salvation of Israel is in the LORD our God. ²⁴From our youth, that shameful god has consumed what our fathers have worked for— their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. ²⁵Let us lie down in our shame; let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the LORD our God, both we and our fathers; from our youth even to this day we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”