Today our passages
are 1 Samuel 24:1–25:44; John 10:22-42; Psalm 116:1-19; and Proverbs 15:20-21.
The readings are from The Message by Eugene H.
Peterson.
If you missed a day, you can find all the readings at our blog, The
Bible in a Year.
1 Samuel 24-25:44 (The Message)
1 Samuel 24
"I'm No Rebel"
1-4 When Saul came back after dealing with
the Philistines, he was told, "David is now in the wilderness of En Gedi." Saul
took three companies—the best he could find in all Israel—and set out in search
of David and his men in the region of Wild Goat Rocks. He came to some sheep
pens along the road. There was a cave there and Saul went in to relieve himself.
David and his men were huddled far back in the same cave. David's men whispered
to him, "Can you believe it? This is the day God was talking about when he said,
'I'll put your enemy in your hands. You can do whatever you want with him.'"
Quiet as a cat, David crept up and cut off a piece of Saul's royal robe.
5-7 Immediately, he felt guilty. He said to
his men, "God forbid that I should
have done this to my master, God's
anointed, that I should so much as raise a finger against him. He's God's anointed!" David held his men in
check with these words and wouldn't let them pounce on Saul. Saul got up, left
the cave, and went on down the road.
8-13 Then David stood at the mouth of the
cave and called to Saul, "My master!My king!" Saul looked back. David fell to
his knees and bowed in reverence. He called out, "Why do you listen to those who
say 'David is out to get you'? This very day with your very own eyes you have
seen that just now in the cave God
put you in my hands. My men wanted me to kill you, but I wouldn't do it. I told
them that I won't lift a finger against my master—he's God's anointed. Oh, my father, look at
this, look at this piece that I cut from your robe. I could have cut you—killed
you!—but I didn't. Look at the evidence! I'm not against you. I'm no rebel. I
haven't sinned against you, and yet you're hunting me down to kill me. Let's
decide which of us is in the right. God may avenge me, but it is in his
hands, not mine. An old proverb says, 'Evil deeds come from evil people.' So be
assured that my hand won't touch you.
14-15 "What does the king of Israel think
he's doing? Who do you think you're chasing? A dead dog? A flea? God is our judge. He'll decide who is
right. Oh, that he would look down right now, decide right now—and set me free
of you!"
16-21 When David had finished saying all
this, Saul said, "Can this be the voice of my son David?" and he wept in loud
sobs. "You're the one in the right, not me," he continued. "You've heaped good
on me; I've dumped evil on you. And now you've done it again—treated me
generously. God put me in your
hands and you didn't kill me. Why? When a man meets his enemy, does he send him
down the road with a blessing? May God give you a bonus of blessings for
what you've done for me today! I know now beyond doubt that you will rule as
king. The kingdom of Israel is already in your grasp! Now promise me under God that you will not kill off my family
or wipe my name off the books."
22 David promised Saul. Then Saul went home
and David and his men went up to their wilderness refuge.
1 Samuel 25
To Fight God's Battles
1 Samuel died. The whole country came to his
funeral. Everyone grieved over his death, and he was buried in his hometown of
Ramah. Meanwhile, David moved again, this time to the wilderness of Maon.
2-3 There was a certain man in Maon who
carried on his business in the region of Carmel. He was very prosperous—three
thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and it was sheep-shearing time in Carmel.
The man's name was Nabal (Fool), a Calebite, and his wife's name was Abigail.
The woman was intelligent and good-looking, the man brutish and mean.
4-8 David, out in the backcountry, heard
that Nabal was shearing his sheep and sent ten of his young men off with these
instructions: "Go to Carmel and approach Nabal. Greet him in my name, 'Peace!
Life and peace to you. Peace to your household, peace to everyone here! I heard
that it's sheep-shearing time. Here's the point: When your shepherds were camped
near us we didn't take advantage of them. They didn't lose a thing all the time
they were with us in Carmel. Ask your young men—they'll tell you. What I'm
asking is that you be generous with my men—share the feast! Give whatever your
heart tells you to your servants and to me, David your son.'"
9-11 David's young men went and delivered
his message word for word to Nabal. Nabal tore into them, "Who is this David?
Who is this son of Jesse? The country is full of runaway servants these days. Do
you think I'm going to take good bread and wine and meat freshly butchered for
my sheepshearers and give it to men I've never laid eyes on? Who knows where
they've come from?"
12-13 David's men got out of there and went
back and told David what he had said. David said, "Strap on your swords!" They
all strapped on their swords, David and his men, and set out, four hundred of
them. Two hundred stayed behind to guard the camp.
14-17 Meanwhile, one of the young shepherds
told Abigail, Nabal's wife, what had happened: "David sent messengers from the
backcountry to salute our master, but he tore into them with insults. Yet these
men treated us very well. They took nothing from us and didn't take advantage of
us all the time we were in the fields. They formed a wall around us, protecting
us day and night all the time we were out tending the sheep. Do something
quickly because big trouble is ahead for our master and all of us. Nobody can
talk to him. He's impossible—a real brute!"
18-19 Abigail flew into action. She took two
hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep dressed out and ready for
cooking, a bushel of roasted grain, a hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig
cakes, and she had it all loaded on some donkeys. Then she said to her young
servants, "Go ahead and pave the way for me. I'm right behind you." But she said
nothing to her husband Nabal.
20-22 As she was riding her donkey,
descending into a ravine, David and his men were descending from the other end,
so they met there on the road. David had just said, "That sure was a waste,
guarding everything this man had out in the wild so that nothing he had was
lost—and now he rewards me with insults. A real slap in the face! May God do his
worst to me if Nabal and every cur in his misbegotten brood aren't dead meat by
morning!"
23-25 As soon as Abigail saw David, she got
off her donkey and fell on her knees at his feet, her face to the ground in
homage, saying, "My master, let me take the blame! Let me speak to you. Listen
to what I have to say. Don't dwell on what that brute Nabal did. He acts out the
meaning of his name: Nabal, Fool. Foolishness oozes from him.
25-27 "I wasn't there when the young men my
master sent arrived. I didn't see them. And now, my master, as God lives and as you live, God has kept you from this avenging
murder—and may your enemies, all who seek my master's harm, end up like Nabal!
Now take this gift that I, your servant girl, have brought to my master, and
give it to the young men who follow in the steps of my master.
28-29 "Forgive my presumption! But God is at work in my master, developing
a rule solid and dependable. My master fights God's battles! As long as you live no
evil will stick to you.
If anyone stands in your way,
if anyone tries to get you out of the way,
Know this: Your God-honored life is tightly bound
in the bundle of God-protected life;
But the lives of your enemies will be hurled aside
as a stone is thrown from a sling.
If anyone stands in your way,
if anyone tries to get you out of the way,
Know this: Your God-honored life is tightly bound
in the bundle of God-protected life;
But the lives of your enemies will be hurled aside
as a stone is thrown from a sling.
30-31 "When God completes all the goodness he has
promised my master and sets you up as prince over Israel, my master will not
have this dead weight in his heart, the guilt of an avenging murder. And when
God has worked things for good for
my master, remember me."
32-34 And David said, "Blessed be God, the God of Israel. He sent you to
meet me! And blessed be your good sense! Bless you for keeping me from murder
and taking charge of looking out for me. A close call! As God lives, the God of Israel who kept me
from hurting you, if you had not come as quickly as you did, stopping me in my
tracks, by morning there would have been nothing left of Nabal but dead meat."
35 Then David accepted the gift she brought
him and said, "Return home in peace. I've heard what you've said and I'll do
what you've asked."
36-38 When Abigail got home she found Nabal
presiding over a huge banquet. He was in high spirits—and very, very drunk. So
she didn't tell him anything of what she'd done until morning. But in the
morning, after Nabal had sobered up, she told him the whole story. Right then
and there he had a heart attack and fell into a coma. About ten days later God finished him off and he died.
39-40 When David heard that Nabal was dead
he said, "Blessed be God who has
stood up for me against Nabal's insults, kept me from an evil act, and let
Nabal's evil boomerang back on him."
Then David sent
for Abigail to tell her that he wanted her for his wife. David's servants went
to Abigail at Carmel with the message, "David sent us to bring you to marry
him."
41 She got up, and then bowed down, face to
the ground, saying, "I'm your servant, ready to do anything you want. I'll even
wash the feet of my master's servants!"
42 Abigail didn't linger. She got on her
donkey and, with her five maids in attendance, went with the messengers to David
and became his wife.
43-44 David also married Ahinoam of Jezreel.
Both women were his wives. Saul had married off David's wife Michal to Palti
(Paltiel) son of Laish, who was from Gallim.
John 10:22-42 (The Message)
22-24They were celebrating Hanukkah just
then in Jerusalem. It was winter. Jesus was strolling in the Temple across
Solomon's Porch. The Jews, circling him, said, "How long are you going to keep
us guessing? If you're the Messiah, tell us straight out."
25-30Jesus answered, "I told you, but you
don't believe. Everything I have done has been authorized by my Father, actions
that speak louder than words. You don't believe because you're not my sheep. My
sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and
eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal
them from out of my hand. The Father who put them under my care is so much
greater than the Destroyer and Thief. No one could ever get them away from him.
I and the Father are one heart and mind."
31-32Again the Jews picked up rocks to
throw at him. Jesus said, "I have made a present to you from the Father of a
great many good actions. For which of these acts do you stone me?"
33The Jews said, "We're not stoning you for
anything good you did, but for what you said—this blasphemy of calling yourself
God."
34-38Jesus said, "I'm only quoting your
inspired Scriptures, where God said, 'I tell you—you are gods.' If God called
your ancestors 'gods'—and Scripture doesn't lie—why do you yell, 'Blasphemer!
Blasphemer!' at the unique One the Father consecrated and sent into the world,
just because I said, 'I am the Son of God'? If I don't do the things my Father
does, well and good; don't believe me. But if I am doing them, put aside for a
moment what you hear me say about myself and just take the evidence of the
actions that are right before your eyes. Then perhaps things will come together
for you, and you'll see that not only are we doing the same thing, we are the
same—Father and Son. He is in me; I am in him."
39-42They tried yet again to arrest him,
but he slipped through their fingers. He went back across the Jordan to the
place where John first baptized, and stayed there. A lot of people followed him
over. They were saying, "John did no miracles, but everything he said about this
man has come true." Many believed in him then and there.
Psalm 116:1-19 (The Message)
Psalm 116
He listened so intently
as I laid out my case before him.
Death stared me in the face,
hell was hard on my heels.
Up against it, I didn't know which way to turn;
then I called out to God for help:
"Please, God!" I cried out.
"Save my life!"
God is gracious—it is he who makes things right,
our most compassionate God.
God takes the side of the helpless;
when I was at the end of my rope, he saved me.
7-8 I said to myself, "Relax and rest.
God has showered you with blessings.
Soul, you've been rescued from death;
Eye, you've been rescued from tears;
And you, Foot, were kept from stumbling."
9-11 I'm striding in the presence of God,
alive in the land of the living!
I stayed faithful, though bedeviled,
and despite a ton of bad luck,
Despite giving up on the human race,
saying, "They're all liars and cheats."
12-19 What can I give back to God
for the blessings he's poured out on me?
I'll lift high the cup of salvation—a toast to God!
I'll pray in the name of God;
I'll complete what I promised God I'd do,
and I'll do it together with his people.
When they arrive at the gates of death,
God welcomes those who love him.
Oh, God, here I am, your servant,
your faithful servant: set me free for your service!
I'm ready to offer the thanksgiving sacrifice
and pray in the name of God.
I'll complete what I promised God I'd do,
and I'll do it in company with his people,
In the place of worship, in God's house,
in Jerusalem, God's city.
Hallelujah!
Proverbs 15:20-21 (The Message)
20 Intelligent children make their parents proud;
lazy students embarrass their parents.
21 The empty-headed treat life as a plaything;
the perceptive grasp its meaning and make a go of it.
Verse of the Day
“But the wisdom
that comes from above leads us to be pure, friendly, gentle, sensible, kind,
helpful, genuine, and sincere. When peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they will
harvest justice.” - James 3:17-18
Today's passage is from the
Contemporary English Version.
Thought for the Day
African-American Muslim minister and a human rights activist, Malcolm X wrote, “Once you
change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your
thought pattern, you change your — your attitude. Once you change your attitude,
it changes your behavior pattern and then you go on into some action.”
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