Day 331 reading

Wisdom·Proverbs 21:8–17

⁸The way of a guilty man is crooked, but the conduct of the innocent is upright. ⁹Better to live on a corner of the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife. ¹⁰The soul of the wicked man craves evil; his neighbor finds no favor in his eyes. ¹¹When a mocker is punished, the simple gain wisdom; and when a wise man is instructed, he acquires knowledge. ¹²The Righteous One considers the house of the wicked and brings the wicked to ruin. ¹³Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too shall cry out and receive no answer. ¹⁴A gift in secret soothes anger, and a covert bribe pacifies great wrath. ¹⁵Justice executed is a joy to the righteous, but a terror to the workers of iniquity. ¹⁶The man who strays from the path of understanding will rest in the assembly of the dead. ¹⁷He who loves pleasure will become poor; the one who loves wine and oil will never be rich.

New Testament·James 4

¹What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you? ²You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures. ⁴You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you think the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy? ⁶But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” ⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. ¹¹Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. And if you judge the law, you are not a practitioner of the law, but a judge of it. ¹²There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? ¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” ¹⁴You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin.

Old Testament·Ezekiel 32–33

¹In the twelfth year, on the first day of the twelfth month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ²“Son of man, take up a lament for Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: ‘You are like a lion among the nations; you are like a monster in the seas. You thrash about in your rivers, churning up the waters with your feet and muddying the streams.’ ³This is what the Lord GOD says: ‘I will spread My net over you with a company of many peoples, and they will draw you up in My net. ⁴I will abandon you on the land and hurl you into the open field. I will cause all the birds of the air to settle upon you, and all the beasts of the earth to eat their fill of you. ⁵I will put your flesh on the mountains and fill the valleys with your remains. ⁶I will drench the land with the flow of your blood, all the way to the mountains— the ravines will be filled. ⁷When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. ⁸All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you, and I will bring darkness upon your land,’ declares the Lord GOD. ⁹‘I will trouble the hearts of many peoples, when I bring about your destruction among the nations, in countries you do not know. ¹⁰I will cause many peoples to be appalled over you, and their kings will shudder in horror because of you when I brandish My sword before them. On the day of your downfall each of them will tremble every moment for his life.’ ¹¹For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘The sword of the king of Babylon will come against you! ¹²I will make your hordes fall by the swords of the mighty, the most ruthless of all nations. They will ravage the pride of Egypt and all her multitudes will be destroyed. ¹³I will slaughter all her cattle beside the abundant waters. No human foot will muddy them again, and no cattle hooves will disturb them. ¹⁴Then I will let her waters settle and will make her rivers flow like oil,’ declares the Lord GOD. ¹⁵‘When I make the land of Egypt a desolation and empty it of all that filled it, when I strike down all who live there, then they will know that I am the LORD.’ ¹⁶This is the lament they will chant for her; the daughters of the nations will chant it. Over Egypt and all her multitudes they will chant it, declares the Lord GOD.” ¹⁷In the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ¹⁸“Son of man, wail for the multitudes of Egypt, and consign her and the daughters of the mighty nations to the depths of the earth with those who descend to the Pit: ¹⁹Whom do you surpass in beauty? Go down and be placed with the uncircumcised! ²⁰They will fall among those slain by the sword. The sword is appointed! Let them drag her away along with all her multitudes. ²¹Mighty chiefs will speak from the midst of Sheol about Egypt and her allies: ‘They have come down and lie with the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.’ ²²Assyria is there with her whole company; her graves are all around her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword. ²³Her graves are set in the depths of the Pit, and her company is all around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword— those who once spread terror in the land of the living. ²⁴Elam is there with all her multitudes around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword— those who went down uncircumcised to the earth below, who once spread their terror in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit. ²⁵Among the slain they prepare a resting place for Elam with all her hordes, with her graves all around her. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword, although their terror was once spread in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit. They are placed among the slain. ²⁶Meshech and Tubal are there with all their multitudes, with their graves all around them. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword, because they spread their terror in the land of the living. ²⁷They do not lie down with the fallen warriors of old, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were placed under their heads, whose shields rested on their bones, although the terror of the mighty was once in the land of the living. ²⁸But you too will be shattered and lie down among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword. ²⁹Edom is there, and all her kings and princes, who despite their might are laid among those slain by the sword. They lie down with the uncircumcised, with those who descend to the Pit. ³⁰All the leaders of the north and all the Sidonians are there; they went down in disgrace with the slain, despite the terror of their might. They lie uncircumcised with those slain by the sword and bear their shame with those who descend to the Pit. ³¹Pharaoh will see them and be comforted over all his multitude— Pharaoh and all his army, slain by the sword, declares the Lord GOD. ³²For I will spread My terror in the land of the living, so that Pharaoh and all his multitude will be laid to rest among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword, declares the Lord GOD.”

33Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ²“Son of man, speak to your people and tell them: ‘Suppose I bring the sword against a land, and the people of that land choose a man from among them, appointing him as their watchman, ³and he sees the sword coming against that land and blows the ram’s horn to warn the people. ⁴Then if anyone hears the sound of the horn but fails to heed the warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. ⁵Since he heard the sound of the horn but failed to heed the warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had heeded the warning, he would have saved his life. ⁶But if the watchman sees the sword coming and fails to blow the horn to warn the people, and the sword comes and takes away a life, then that one will be taken away in his iniquity, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’ ⁷As for you, O son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word from My mouth and give them the warning from Me. ⁸If I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ but you do not speak out to dissuade him from his way, then that wicked man will die in his iniquity, yet I will hold you accountable for his blood. ⁹But if you warn the wicked man to turn from his way, and he does not turn from it, he will die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life. ¹⁰Now as for you, son of man, tell the house of Israel that this is what they have said: ‘Our transgressions and our sins are heavy upon us, and we are wasting away because of them! How can we live?’ ¹¹Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’ ¹²Therefore, son of man, say to your people: ‘The righteousness of the righteous man will not deliver him in the day of his transgression; neither will the wickedness of the wicked man cause him to stumble on the day he turns from his wickedness. Nor will the righteous man be able to survive by his righteousness on the day he sins.’ ¹³If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but he then trusts in his righteousness and commits iniquity, then none of his righteous works will be remembered; he will die because of the iniquity he has committed. ¹⁴But if I tell the wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ and he turns from his sin and does what is just and right— ¹⁵if he restores a pledge, makes restitution for what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without practicing iniquity—then he will surely live; he will not die. ¹⁶None of the sins he has committed will be held against him. He has done what is just and right; he will surely live. ¹⁷Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. ¹⁸If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he will die for it. ¹⁹But if a wicked man turns from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live because of this. ²⁰Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to his ways, O house of Israel.” ²¹In the twelfth year of our exile, on the fifth day of the tenth month, a fugitive from Jerusalem came to me and reported, “The city has been taken!” ²²Now the evening before the fugitive arrived, the hand of the LORD was upon me, and He opened my mouth before the man came to me in the morning. So my mouth was opened and I was no longer mute. ²³Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ²⁴“Son of man, those living in the ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he possessed the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as a possession.’ ²⁵Therefore tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You eat meat with the blood in it, lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood. Should you then possess the land? ²⁶You have relied on your swords, you have committed detestable acts, and each of you has defiled his neighbor’s wife. Should you then possess the land?’ ²⁷Tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘As surely as I live, those in the ruins will fall by the sword, those in the open field I will give to be devoured by wild animals, and those in the strongholds and caves will die by plague. ²⁸I will make the land a desolate waste, and the pride of her strength will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will become desolate, so that no one will pass through. ²⁹Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolate waste because of all the abominations they have committed.’ ³⁰As for you, son of man, your people are talking about you near the city walls and in the doorways of their houses. One speaks to another, each saying to his brother, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the LORD!’ ³¹So My people come to you as usual, sit before you, and hear your words; but they do not put them into practice. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest gain. ³²Indeed, you are to them like a singer of love songs with a beautiful voice, who skillfully plays an instrument. They hear your words but do not put them into practice. ³³So when it comes to pass—and surely it will come—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”