Day 37 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 26

¹Vindicate me, O LORD! For I have walked with integrity; I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. ²Test me, O LORD, and try me; examine my heart and mind. ³For Your loving devotion is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth. ⁴I do not sit with deceitful men, nor keep company with hypocrites. ⁵I hate the mob of evildoers, and refuse to sit with the wicked. ⁶I wash my hands in innocence that I may go about Your altar, O LORD, ⁷to raise my voice in thanksgiving and declare all Your wonderful works. ⁸O LORD, I love the house where You dwell, the place where Your glory resides. ⁹Do not take my soul away with sinners, or my life with men of bloodshed, ¹⁰in whose hands are wicked schemes, whose right hands are full of bribes. ¹¹But I will walk with integrity; redeem me and be merciful to me. ¹²My feet stand on level ground; in the congregations I will bless the LORD.

New Testament·Matthew 23:12–39

¹²For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. ¹³Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter. ¹⁵Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You traverse land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. ¹⁶Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁷You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes it sacred? ¹⁸And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁹You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes it sacred? ²⁰So then, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. ²¹And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the One who dwells in it. ²²And he who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the One who sits on it. ²³Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. ²⁴You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. ²⁵Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well. ²⁷Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity. ²⁸In the same way, on the outside you appear to be righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. ²⁹Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous. ³⁰And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³²Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your fathers. ³³You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape the sentence of hell? ³⁴Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute in town after town. ³⁵And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. ³⁶Truly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation. ³⁷O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! ³⁸Look, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹For I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Old Testament·Exodus 16–17

¹On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt, the whole congregation of Israel set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai. ²And there in the desert they all grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³“If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt!” they said. “There we sat by pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death!” ⁴Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether or not they will follow My instructions. ⁵Then on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on the other days.” ⁶So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “This evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, ⁷and in the morning you will see the LORD’s glory, because He has heard your grumbling against Him. For who are we that you should grumble against us?” ⁸And Moses added, “The LORD will give you meat to eat this evening and bread to fill you in the morning, for He has heard your grumbling against Him. Who are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the LORD.” ⁹Then Moses said to Aaron, “Tell the whole congregation of Israel, ‘Come before the LORD, for He has heard your grumbling.’” ¹⁰And as Aaron was speaking to the whole congregation of Israel, they looked toward the desert, and there in a cloud the glory of the LORD appeared. ¹¹Then the LORD said to Moses, ¹²“I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.’” ¹³That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴When the layer of dew had evaporated, there were thin flakes on the desert floor, as fine as frost on the ground. ¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. So Moses told them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. ¹⁶This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs. You may take an omer for each person in your tent.’” ¹⁷So the Israelites did this. Some gathered more, and some less. ¹⁸When they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no shortfall. Each one gathered as much as he needed to eat. ¹⁹Then Moses said to them, “No one may keep any of it until morning.” ²⁰But they did not listen to Moses; some people left part of it until morning, and it became infested with maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. ²¹Every morning each one gathered as much as was needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. ²²On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much food—two omers per person —and all the leaders of the congregation came and reported this to Moses. ²³He told them, “This is what the LORD has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’” ²⁴So they set it aside until morning as Moses had commanded, and it did not smell or contain any maggots. ²⁵“Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. Today you will not find anything in the field. ²⁶For six days you may gather, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, it will not be there.” ²⁷Yet on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they did not find anything. ²⁸Then the LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep My commandments and instructions? ²⁹Understand that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day He will give you bread for two days. On the seventh day, everyone must stay where he is; no one may leave his place.” ³⁰So the people rested on the seventh day. ³¹Now the house of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey. ³²Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Keep an omer of manna for the generations to come, so that they may see the bread I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” ³³So Moses told Aaron, “Take a jar and fill it with an omer of manna. Then place it before the LORD to be preserved for the generations to come.” ³⁴And Aaron placed it in front of the Testimony, to be preserved just as the LORD had commanded Moses. ³⁵The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land where they could settle; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan. ³⁶(Now an omer is a tenth of an ephah.)

17Then the whole congregation of Israel left the Desert of Sin, moving from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. ²So the people contended with Moses, “Give us water to drink.” “Why do you contend with me?” Moses replied. “Why do you test the LORD?” ³But the people thirsted for water there, and they grumbled against Moses: “Why have you brought us out of Egypt—to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” ⁴Then Moses cried out to the LORD, “What should I do with these people? A little more and they will stone me!” ⁵And the LORD said to Moses, “Walk on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Take along in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. ⁶Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. ⁷He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled, and because they tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?” ⁸After this, the Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. ⁹So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on the hilltop with the staff of God in my hand.” ¹⁰Joshua did as Moses had instructed him and fought against the Amalekites, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. ¹¹As long as Moses held up his hands, Israel prevailed; but when he lowered them, Amalek prevailed. ¹²When Moses’ hands grew heavy, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Then Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on each side, so that his hands remained steady until the sun went down. ¹³So Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his army with the sword. ¹⁴Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to Joshua, because I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” ¹⁵And Moses built an altar and named it The LORD Is My Banner. ¹⁶“Indeed,” he said, “a hand was lifted up toward the throne of the LORD. The LORD will war against Amalek from generation to generation.”