Day 5 reading

Wisdom·Psalm 5

¹Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning. ²Attend to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I pray. ³In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my plea before You and wait in expectation. ⁴For You are not a God who delights in wickedness; no evil can dwell with You. ⁵The boastful cannot stand in Your presence; You hate all workers of iniquity. ⁶You destroy those who tell lies; the LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. ⁷But I will enter Your house by the abundance of Your loving devotion; in reverence I will bow down toward Your holy temple. ⁸Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness because of my enemies; make straight Your way before me. ⁹For not a word they speak can be trusted; destruction lies within them. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. ¹⁰Declare them guilty, O God; let them fall by their own devices. Drive them out for their many transgressions, for they have rebelled against You. ¹¹But let all who take refuge in You rejoice; let them ever shout for joy. May You shelter them, that those who love Your name may rejoice in You. ¹²For surely You, O LORD, bless the righteous; You surround them with the shield of Your favor.

New Testament·Matthew 5:1–19

¹When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to Him, ²and He began to teach them, saying: ³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ⁵Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ⁷Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. ⁸Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ⁹Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. ¹⁰Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you. ¹³You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. ¹⁴You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. ¹⁷Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. ¹⁸For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. ¹⁹So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Old Testament·Genesis 9–10

¹And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ²The fear and dread of you will fall on every living creature on the earth, every bird of the air, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are delivered into your hand. ³Everything that lives and moves will be food for you; just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you all things. ⁴But you must not eat meat with its lifeblood still in it. ⁵And surely I will require the life of any man or beast by whose hand your lifeblood is shed. I will demand an accounting from anyone who takes the life of his fellow man: ⁶Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind. ⁷But as for you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out across the earth and multiply upon it.” ⁸Then God said to Noah and his sons with him, ⁹“Behold, I now establish My covenant with you and your descendants after you, ¹⁰and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth—every living thing that came out of the ark. ¹¹And I establish My covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” ¹²And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between Me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³I have set My rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. ¹⁴Whenever I form clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶And whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of every kind that is on the earth.” ¹⁷So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between Me and every creature on the earth.” ¹⁸The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan. ¹⁹These three were the sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was populated. ²⁰Now Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. ²¹But when he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. ²²And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. ²³Then Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it across their shoulders, and walking backward, they covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. ²⁴When Noah awoke from his drunkenness and learned what his youngest son had done to him, ²⁵he said, “Cursed be Canaan! A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” ²⁶He also declared: “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the servant of Shem. ²⁷May God expand the territory of Japheth; may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his servant.” ²⁸After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. ²⁹So Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.

10This is the account of Noah’s sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who also had sons after the flood. ²The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. ³The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. ⁴And the sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites, and the Rodanites. ⁵From these, the maritime peoples separated into their territories, according to their languages, by clans within their nations. ⁶The sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. ⁷The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. And the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. ⁸Cush was the father of Nimrod, who began to be a mighty one on the earth. ⁹He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; so it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD.” ¹⁰His kingdom began in Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. ¹¹From that land he went forth into Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, ¹²and Resen, which is between Nineveh and the great city of Calah. ¹³Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, the Anamites, the Lehabites, the Naphtuhites, ¹⁴the Pathrusites, the Casluhites (from whom the Philistines came), and the Caphtorites. ¹⁵And Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, ¹⁶the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, ¹⁷the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, ¹⁸the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Later the Canaanite clans were scattered, ¹⁹and the borders of Canaan extended from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. ²⁰These are the sons of Ham according to their clans, languages, lands, and nations. ²¹And sons were also born to Shem, the older brother of Japheth; Shem was the forefather of all the sons of Eber. ²²The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. ²³The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. ²⁴Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, and Shelah was the father of Eber. ²⁵Two sons were born to Eber: One was named Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided, and his brother was named Joktan. ²⁶And Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, ²⁷Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, ²⁸Obal, Abimael, Sheba, ²⁹Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan. ³⁰Their territory extended from Mesha to Sephar, in the eastern hill country. ³¹These are the sons of Shem, according to their clans, languages, lands, and nations. ³²All these are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their generations and nations. From these the nations of the earth spread out after the flood.