Day 296 reading

Wisdom·Proverbs 10:13–21

¹³Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks judgment. ¹⁴The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of the fool invites destruction. ¹⁵The wealth of the rich man is his fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor. ¹⁶The labor of the righteous leads to life, but the gain of the wicked brings punishment. ¹⁷Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who ignores reproof goes astray. ¹⁸The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool. ¹⁹When words are many, sin is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise. ²⁰The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked has little worth. ²¹The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of judgment.

New Testament·1 Thessalonians 2–3

¹You yourselves know, brothers, that our visit to you was not in vain. ²As you are aware, we had already endured suffering and shameful treatment in Philippi. But in the face of strong opposition, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God. ³For our appeal does not arise from deceit or ulterior motives or trickery. ⁴Instead, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, not in order to please men but God, who examines our hearts. ⁵As you know, we never used words of flattery or any pretext for greed. God is our witness! ⁶Nor did we seek praise from you or from anyone else, although as apostles of Christ we had authority to demand it. ⁷On the contrary, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother caring for her children. ⁸We cared so deeply that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our own lives as well. That is how beloved you have become to us. ⁹Surely you recall, brothers, our labor and toil. We worked night and day so that we would not be a burden to anyone while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. ¹⁰You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless our conduct was among you who believed. ¹¹For you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children— ¹²encouraging you, comforting you, and urging you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. ¹³And we continually thank God because, when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as the true word of God—the word which is now at work in you who believe. ¹⁴For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Judea that are in Christ Jesus. You suffered from your own countrymen the very things they suffered from the Jews, ¹⁵who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men, ¹⁶hindering us from telling the Gentiles how they may be saved. As a result, they continue to heap up their sins to full capacity; the utmost wrath has come upon them. ¹⁷Brothers, although we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in heart), our desire to see you face to face was even more intense. ¹⁸For we wanted to come to you—indeed I, Paul, tried again and again—but Satan obstructed us. ¹⁹After all, who is our hope, our joy, our crown of boasting, if it is not you yourselves in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming? ²⁰You are indeed our glory and our joy.

3So when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left on our own in Athens. ²We sent Timothy, our brother and fellow worker for God in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, ³so that none of you would be shaken by these trials. For you know that we are destined for this. ⁴Indeed, when we were with you, we kept warning you that we would suffer persecution; and as you know, it has come to pass. ⁵For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter had somehow tempted you and caused our labor to be in vain. ⁶But just now, Timothy has returned from his visit with the good news about your faith, your love, and the fond memories you have preserved, longing to see us just as we long to see you. ⁷For this reason, brothers, in all our distress and persecution, we have been reassured about you, because of your faith. ⁸For now we can go on living, as long as you are standing firm in the Lord. ⁹How can we adequately thank God for you in return for our great joy over you in His presence? ¹⁰Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking from your faith. ¹¹Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you. ¹²And may the Lord cause you to increase and overflow with love for one another and for everyone else, just as our love for you overflows, ¹³so that He may establish your hearts in blamelessness and holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. Amen.

Old Testament·Jeremiah 17–18

¹“The sin of Judah is written with an iron stylus, engraved with a diamond point on the tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars. ²Even their children remember their altars and Asherah poles by the green trees and on the high hills. ³O My mountain in the countryside, I will give over your wealth and all your treasures as plunder, because of the sin of your high places, within all your borders. ⁴And you yourself will relinquish the inheritance that I gave you. I will enslave you to your enemies in a land that you do not know, for you have kindled My anger; it will burn forever.” ⁵This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind, who makes the flesh his strength and turns his heart from the LORD. ⁶He will be like a shrub in the desert; he will not see when prosperity comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. ⁷But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. ⁸He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit. ⁹The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? ¹⁰I, the LORD, search the heart; I examine the mind to reward a man according to his way, by what his deeds deserve. ¹¹Like a partridge hatching eggs it did not lay is the man who makes a fortune unjustly. In the middle of his days his riches will desert him, and in the end he will be the fool.” ¹²A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. ¹³O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame. All who turn away will be written in the dust, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water. ¹⁴Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for You are my praise. ¹⁵Behold, they keep saying to me, “Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come now!” ¹⁶But I have not run away from being Your shepherd; I have not desired the day of despair. You know that the utterance of my lips was spoken in Your presence. ¹⁷Do not become a terror to me; You are my refuge in the day of disaster. ¹⁸Let my persecutors be put to shame, but do not let me be put to shame. Let them be terrified, but do not let me be terrified. Bring upon them the day of disaster and shatter them with double destruction. ¹⁹This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; and stand at all the other gates of Jerusalem. ²⁰Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, all people of Judah and Jerusalem who enter through these gates. ²¹This is what the LORD says: Take heed for yourselves; do not carry a load or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. ²²You must not carry a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath day, but you must keep the Sabbath day holy, just as I commanded your forefathers. ²³Yet they would not listen or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and would not listen or receive My discipline. ²⁴If, however, you listen carefully to Me, says the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, and keep the Sabbath day holy, and do no work on it, ²⁵then kings and princes will enter through the gates of this city. They will sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses with their officials, along with the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever. ²⁶And people will come from the cities of Judah and the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin, and from the foothills, the hill country, and the Negev, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and thank offerings to the house of the LORD. ²⁷But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load while entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle an unquenchable fire in its gates to consume the citadels of Jerusalem.’”

18This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ²“Go down at once to the potter’s house, and there I will reveal My message to you.” ³So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working at the wheel. ⁴But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do. ⁵Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ⁶“O house of Israel, declares the LORD, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay? Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. ⁷At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed. ⁸But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring. ⁹And if at another time I announce that I will build up and establish a nation or kingdom, ¹⁰and if it does evil in My sight and does not listen to My voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended for it. ¹¹Now therefore, tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I am planning a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways, and correct your ways and deeds.’ ¹²But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’” ¹³Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Inquire among the nations: Who has ever heard things like these? Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing. ¹⁴Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave its rocky slopes? Or do its cool waters flowing from a distance ever run dry? ¹⁵Yet My people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to worthless idols that make them stumble in their ways, leaving the ancient roads to walk on rutted bypaths instead of on the highway. ¹⁶They have made their land a desolation, a perpetual object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and shake their heads. ¹⁷I will scatter them before the enemy like the east wind. I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their calamity.” ¹⁸Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.” ¹⁹Attend to me, O LORD. Hear what my accusers are saying! ²⁰Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You to speak good on their behalf, to turn Your wrath from them. ²¹Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle. ²²Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring raiders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet. ²³But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me. Do not wipe out their guilt or blot out their sin from Your sight. Let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.