Day 297 reading

Wisdom·Proverbs 10:22–32

²²The blessing of the LORD enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it. ²³The fool delights in shameful conduct, but a man of understanding has wisdom. ²⁴What the wicked man dreads will overtake him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. ²⁵When the whirlwind passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are secure forever. ²⁶Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the slacker to those who send him. ²⁷The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be cut short. ²⁸The hope of the righteous is joy, but the expectations of the wicked will perish. ²⁹The way of the LORD is a refuge to the upright, but destruction awaits those who do evil. ³⁰The righteous will never be shaken, but the wicked will not inhabit the land. ³¹The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be cut out. ³²The lips of the righteous know what is fitting, but the mouth of the wicked is perverse.

New Testament·1 Thessalonians 4

¹Finally, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus to live in a way that is pleasing to God, just as you have received from us. This is how you already live, so you should do so all the more. ²For you know the instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. ³For it is God’s will that you should be holy: You must abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴each of you must know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, ⁵not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶and no one should ever violate or exploit his brother in this regard, because the Lord will avenge all such acts, as we have already told you and solemnly warned you. ⁷For God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness. ⁸Anyone, then, who rejects this command does not reject man but God, the very One who gives you His Holy Spirit. ⁹Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you, because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. ¹⁰And you are indeed showing this love to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel more and more ¹¹and to aspire to live quietly, to attend to your own matters, and to work with your own hands, as we instructed you. ¹²Then you will behave properly toward outsiders, without being dependent on anyone. ¹³Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. ¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. ¹⁵By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. ¹⁷After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. ¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Old Testament·Jeremiah 19–21

¹This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests, ²and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I speak to you, ³saying, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring, ⁴because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. ⁵They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind. ⁶So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. ⁷And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. ⁸I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds. ⁹I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’ ¹⁰Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you, ¹¹and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them. ¹²This is what I will do to this place and to its residents, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth. ¹³The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like that place, Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.” ¹⁴Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and proclaimed to all the people, ¹⁵“This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”

20When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer and the chief official in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, ²he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD. ³The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib. ⁴For this is what the LORD says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. And I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon, and he will carry them away to Babylon and put them to the sword. ⁵I will give away all the wealth of this city—all its products and valuables, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—to their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon. ⁶And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon, and there you will die and be buried—you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied these lies.’” ⁷You have deceived me, O LORD, and I was deceived. You have overcome me and prevailed. I am a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. ⁸For whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and destruction. For the word of the LORD has become to me a reproach and derision all day long. ⁹If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail. ¹⁰For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!” All my trusted friends watch for my fall: “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.” ¹¹But the LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior. Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly put to shame, with an everlasting disgrace that will never be forgotten. ¹²O LORD of Hosts, who examines the righteous, who sees the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause. ¹³Sing to the LORD! Praise the LORD! For He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers. ¹⁴Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed. ¹⁵Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, saying, “A son is born to you,” bringing him great joy. ¹⁶May that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without compassion. May he hear an outcry in the morning and a battle cry at noon, ¹⁷because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb forever enlarged. ¹⁸Why did I come out of the womb to see only trouble and sorrow, and to end my days in shame?

21This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur son of Malchijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah. They said, ²“Please inquire of the LORD on our behalf, since Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is waging war against us. Perhaps the LORD will perform for us something like all His past wonders, so that Nebuchadnezzar will withdraw from us.” ³But Jeremiah answered, “You are to tell Zedekiah that ⁴this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will turn against you the weapons of war in your hands, with which you are fighting the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will assemble their forces in the center of this city. ⁵And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with anger, fury, and great wrath. ⁶I will strike down the residents of this city, both man and beast. They will die in a terrible plague.’ ⁷‘After that,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will hand over Zedekiah king of Judah, his officers, and the people in this city who survive the plague and sword and famine, to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword; he will not spare them or show pity or compassion.’ ⁸Furthermore, you are to tell this people that this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. ⁹Whoever stays in this city will die by sword and famine and plague, but whoever goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who besiege you will live; he will retain his life like a spoil of war. ¹⁰For I have set My face against this city to bring disaster and not good, declares the LORD. It will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, who will destroy it with fire.’ ¹¹Moreover, tell the house of the king of Judah to hear the word of the LORD. ¹²O house of David, this is what the LORD says: ‘Administer justice every morning, and rescue the victim of robbery from the hand of his oppressor, or My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it because of their evil deeds. ¹³Behold, I am against you who dwell above the valley, atop the rocky plateau— declares the LORD— you who say, “Who can come against us? Who can enter our dwellings?” ¹⁴I will punish you as your deeds deserve, declares the LORD. I will kindle a fire in your forest that will consume everything around you.’”