Bible Readings for April 26, 2015

Today our passages are Judges 6:1-40; Luke 22:54–23:12; Psalm 95:1–96:13; and Proverbs 14:5-6. The readings are the Contemporary English Version. 

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Judges 6:1-40 (Contemporary English Version)

Judges 6

Midian Steals Everything from Israel

 ¹Then once again the Israelites started disobeying the LORD, so he let the nation of Midian control Israel for seven years.     ²The Midianites were so cruel that many Israelites ran to the mountains and hid in caves.
    ³Every time the Israelites would plant crops, the Midianites invaded Israel together with the Amalekites and other eastern nations.
    ^4-5They rode in on their camels, set up their tents, and then let their livestock eat the crops as far as the town of Gaza. The Midianites stole food, sheep, cattle, and donkeys. Like a swarm of locusts, ^[a] they could not be counted, and they ruined the land wherever they went.
    ^6-7The Midianites took almost everything that belonged to the Israelites, and the Israelites begged the LORD for help.
    ^8-9Then the LORD sent a prophet to them with this message:
   I am the LORD God of Israel, so listen to what I say. You were slaves in Egypt, but I set you free and led you out of Egypt into this land. And when nations here made life miserable for you, I rescued you and helped you get rid of them and take their land.
    ¹⁰I am your God, and I told you not to worship Amorite gods, even though you are living in the land of the Amorites. But you refused to listen.
   

The LORD Chooses Gideon

 ¹¹One day an angel from the LORD went to the town of Ophrah and sat down under the big tree that belonged to Joash, a member of the Abiezer clan. Joash's son Gideon was nearby, threshing grain in a shallow pit, where he could not be seen by the Midianites.     ¹²The angel appeared and spoke to Gideon, " The LORD is helping you, and you are a strong warrior."
    ¹³Gideon answered, " Please don't take this wrong, but if the LORD is helping us, then why have all of these awful things happened? We've heard how the LORD performed miracles and rescued our ancestors from Egypt. But those things happened long ago. Now the LORD has abandoned us to the Midianites."
    ¹⁴Then the LORD himself said, " Gideon, you will be strong, because I am giving you the power to rescue Israel from the Midianites."
    ¹⁵Gideon replied, " But how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest one in Manasseh, and everyone else in my family is more important than I am."
    ¹⁶" Gideon," the LORD answered, " you can rescue Israel because I am going to help you! Defeating the Midianites will be as easy as beating up one man."
    ¹⁷Gideon said, " It's hard to believe that I'm actually talking to the LORD. Please do something so I'll know that you really are the LORD.
    ¹⁸And wait here until I bring you an offering."
   " All right, I'll wait," the LORD answered.
    ¹⁹Gideon went home and killed a young goat, then started boiling the meat. Next, he opened a big sack of flour and made it into thin bread. ^[b] When the meat was done, he put it in a basket and poured the broth into a clay cooking pot. He took the meat, the broth, and the bread and placed them under the big tree.
    ²⁰God's angel said, " Gideon, put the meat and the bread on this rock, and pour the broth over them." Gideon did as he was told.
    ²¹The angel was holding a walking stick, and he touched the meat and the bread with the end of the stick. Flames jumped from the rock and burned up the meat and the bread.
   When Gideon looked, the angel was gone.
    ²²Gideon realized that he had seen one of the LORD's angels. " Oh!" he moaned. " Now I'm going to die." ^{[c]
    23}" Calm down!" the LORD told Gideon. " There's nothing to be afraid of. You're not going to die."
    ²⁴Gideon built an altar for worshiping the LORD and called it " The LORD Calms Our Fears." It still stands there in Ophrah, a town in the territory of the Abiezer clan.
   

Gideon Tears Down Baal's Altar

 ²⁵That night the LORD spoke to Gideon again:    Get your father's second-best bull, the one that's seven years old. Use it to pull down the altar where your father worships Baal and cut down the sacred pole ^[d] next to the altar.
    ²⁶Then build an altar for worshiping me on the highest part of the hill where your town is built. Use layers of stones for my altar, not just a pile of rocks. Cut up the wood from the pole, make a fire, kill the bull, and burn it as a sacrifice to me.
    ²⁷Gideon chose ten of his servants to help him, and they did everything God had said. But since Gideon was afraid of his family and the other people in town, he did it all at night.
    ²⁸When the people of the town got up the next morning, they saw that Baal's altar had been knocked over, and the sacred pole next to it had been cut down. Then they noticed the new altar covered with the remains of the sacrificed bull.
    ²⁹" Who could have done such a thing?" they asked. And they kept on asking, until finally someone told them, " Gideon the son of Joash did it."
    ³⁰The men of the town went to Joash and said, " Your son Gideon knocked over Baal's altar and cut down the sacred pole next to it. Hand him over, so we can kill him!"
    ³¹The crowd pushed closer and closer, but Joash replied, " Are you trying to take revenge for Baal? Are you trying to rescue Baal? If you are, you will be the ones who are put to death, and it will happen before another day dawns. If Baal really is a god, let him take his own revenge on someone who tears down his altar."
    ³²That same day, Joash changed Gideon's name to Jerubbaal, explaining, " He tore down Baal's altar, so let Baal take revenge himself." ^[e]
   

Gideon Defeats the Midianites

 ³³All the Midianites, Amalekites, and other eastern nations got together and crossed the Jordan River. Then they invaded the land of Israel and set up camp in Jezreel Valley.     ³⁴The LORD's Spirit took control of Gideon, and Gideon blew a signal on a trumpet to tell the men in the Abiezer clan to follow him.
    ³⁵He also sent messengers to the tribes of Manasseh, Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, telling the men of these tribes to come and join his army. Then they set out toward the enemy camp.
    ^36-37Gideon prayed to God, " I know that you promised to help me rescue Israel, but I need proof. Tonight I'll put some wool on the stone floor of that threshing-place over there. If you really will help me rescue Israel, then tomorrow morning let there be dew on the wool, but let the stone floor be dry."
    ³⁸And that's just what happened. Early the next morning, Gideon got up and checked the wool. He squeezed out enough water to fill a bowl.
    ³⁹But Gideon prayed to God again. " Don't be angry at me," Gideon said. " Let me try this just one more time, so I'll really be sure you'll help me. Only this time, let the wool be dry and the stone floor be wet with dew."
    ⁴⁰That night, God made the stone floor wet with dew, but he kept the wool dry.
   

Footnotes:

1. Judges 6:4 locusts: Insects like grasshoppers that travel in swarms and cause great damage to crops.
2. Judges 6:19 thin bread: Bread made without yeast, since there was no time for the dough to rise.
3. Judges 6:22 Now I'm going to die: The Hebrew text has " I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face." Some people believed that if they saw one of the LORD's angels, they would die (see 13.22).
4. Judges 6:25 sacred pole: Or " sacred tree," used as a symbol of Asherah, the Canaanite goddess of fertility.
5. Judges 6:32 Jerubbaal. . . take revenge himself: In Hebrew, " Jerubbaal" means " Let Baal take revenge."

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Luke 22:54-23:12 (Contemporary English Version)

Peter Says He Doesn't Know Jesus

(Matthew 26.57,58,67-75; Mark 14.53,54,66-72; John 18.12-18, 25-27)

 ⁵⁴Jesus was arrested and led away to the house of the high priest, while Peter followed at a distance. ⁵⁵Some people built a fire in the middle of the courtyard and were sitting around it. Peter sat there with them, ⁵⁶and a servant girl saw him. Then after she had looked at him carefully, she said, "This man was with Jesus!"     ⁵⁷Peter said, "Woman, I don't even know that man!"
    ⁵⁸A little later someone else saw Peter and said, "You are one of them!"
   "No, I'm not!" Peter replied.
    ⁵⁹About an hour later another man insisted, "This man must have been with Jesus. They both come from Galilee."
    ⁶⁰Peter replied, "I don't know what you are talking about!" Right then, while Peter was still speaking, a rooster crowed.
    ⁶¹The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered that the Lord had said, "Before a rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will say three times that you don't know me." ⁶²Then Peter went out and cried hard.
    ⁶³The men who were guarding Jesus made fun of him and beat him. ⁶⁴They put a blindfold on him and said, "Tell us who struck you!" ⁶⁵They kept on insulting Jesus in many other ways.
   

Jesus Is Questioned by the Council

(Matthew 26.59-66; Mark 14.55-64; John 18.19-24)

 ⁶⁶At daybreak the nation's leaders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law of Moses got together and brought Jesus before their council. ⁶⁷They said, "Tell us! Are you the Messiah?"    Jesus replied, "If I said so, you wouldn't believe me. ⁶⁸And if I asked you a question, you wouldn't answer. ⁶⁹But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right side of God All-Powerful."
    ⁷⁰Then they asked, "Are you the Son of God?" ^[a] Jesus answered, "You say I am!" ^{[b] 71}They replied, "Why do we need more witnesses? He said it himself!"
   

Luke 23

Pilate Questions Jesus

(Matthew 27.1,2,11-14; Mark 15.1-5; John 18.28-38)

 ¹Everyone in the council got up and led Jesus off to Pilate. ²They started accusing him and said, "We caught this man trying to get our people to riot and to stop paying taxes to the Emperor. He also claims that he is the Messiah, our king."     ³Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
   "Those are your words," Jesus answered.
    ⁴Pilate told the chief priests and the crowd, "I don't find him guilty of anything."
    ⁵But they all kept on saying, "He has been teaching and causing trouble all over Judea. He started in Galilee and has now come all the way here."
   

Jesus Is Brought before Herod

 ⁶When Pilate heard this, he asked, "Is this man from Galilee?" ⁷After Pilate learned that Jesus came from the region ruled by Herod, ^[c] he sent him to Herod, who was in Jerusalem at that time. ⁸For a long time Herod had wanted to see Jesus and was very happy because he finally had this chance. He had heard many things about Jesus and hoped to see him work a miracle.     ⁹Herod asked him a lot of questions, but Jesus did not answer. ¹⁰Then the chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses stood up and accused him of all kinds of bad things.
    ¹¹Herod and his soldiers made fun of Jesus and insulted him. They put a fine robe on him and sent him back to Pilate. ¹²That same day Herod and Pilate became friends, even though they had been enemies before this.
   

Footnotes:

1. Luke 22:70 Son of God: This was one of the titles used for the kings of Israel.
2. Luke 22:70 You say I am: Or " That's what you say."
3. Luke 23:7 Herod: Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great.

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Psalm 95-96:13 (Contemporary English Version)

Psalm 95

Worship and Obey the LORD

 ¹Sing joyful songs to the LORD!    Praise the mighty rock
   where we are safe.
    ²Come to worship him
   with thankful hearts
   and songs of praise.
    ³The LORD is the greatest God,
   king over all other gods.
    ⁴He holds the deepest part
   of the earth in his hands,
   and the mountain peaks
   belong to him.
    ⁵The ocean is the Lord's
   because he made it,
   and with his own hands
   he formed the dry land.
    ⁶Bow down and worship
   the LORD our Creator!
    ⁷The LORD is our God,
   and we are his people,
   the sheep he takes care of
   in his own pasture.
   Listen to God's voice today!
    ⁸Don't be stubborn and rebel
   as your ancestors did
   at Meribah and Massah ^[a] out in the desert.
    ⁹For forty years
   they tested God
   and saw
   the things he did.
    ¹⁰Then God got tired of them
   and said,
   "You never show good sense,
   and you don't understand
   what I want you to do."
    ¹¹In his anger, God told them,
   "You people will never enter
   my place of rest."
   

Psalm 96

Sing a New Song to the LORD

 ¹Sing a new song to the LORD!    Everyone on this earth,
   sing praises to the LORD,
    ²sing and praise his name.
   Day after day announce,
   "The LORD has saved us!"
    ³Tell every nation on earth,
   "The LORD is wonderful
   and does marvelous things!
    ⁴The LORD is great and deserves
   our greatest praise!
   He is the only God
   worthy of our worship.
    ⁵Other nations worship idols,
   but the LORD created
   the heavens.
    ⁶Give honor and praise
   to the LORD,
   whose power and beauty
   fill his holy temple."
    ⁷Tell everyone of every nation,
   "Praise the glorious power
   of the LORD.
    ⁸He is wonderful! Praise him
   and bring an offering
   into his temple.
    ⁹Everyone on earth, now tremble
   and worship the LORD,
   majestic and holy."
    ¹⁰Announce to the nations,
   "The LORD is King!
   The world stands firm,
   never to be shaken,
   and he will judge its people
   with fairness."
    ¹¹Tell the heavens and the earth
   to be glad and celebrate!
   Command the ocean to roar
   with all of its creatures
    ¹²and the fields to rejoice
   with all of their crops.
   Then every tree in the forest
   will sing joyful songs
    ¹³to the LORD.
   He is coming to judge
   all people on earth
   with fairness and truth.
   

Footnotes:

1. Psalm 95:8 Meribah and Massah: See the note at 81.7.

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Proverbs 14:5-6 (Contemporary English Version)

⁵An honest witness
   tells the truth;
   a dishonest witness
   tells nothing but lies.
    ⁶Make fun of wisdom,
   and you will never find it.
   But if you have understanding,
   knowledge comes easily.

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Verse of the Day

“He is forever able to save the people he leads to God, because he always lives to speak to God for them.” - Hebrews 7:25

Today's passage is from the Contemporary English Version.

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Thought for Day

 

American lawyer, Civil War veteran, political leader, and orator of United States during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism, Robert Green Ingersoll wrote, “Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.”