Today our passages are 1
Samuel 5:1–7:17; John 6:1-21; Psalm 106:13-31; and Proverbs 14:32-33. The
readings are the Contemporary English
Version.
1 Samuel 5-7:17 (Contemporary English Version)
God Causes Trouble for the Philistines
5 The Philistines took the sacred chest from near
Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod. 2 They brought it into the temple of their god Dagon and
put it next to the statue of Dagon, which they worshiped.
3 When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning,
they found the statue lying facedown on the floor in front of the sacred chest.
They put the statue back where it belonged.4 But early the next morning, it had fallen over again and
was lying facedown on the floor in front of the chest. The body of the statue
was still in one piece, but its head and both hands had broken off and were
lying on the stone floor in the doorway. 5 This is the reason the priests and everyone else step
over that part of the doorway when they enter the temple of Dagon in
Ashdod.
6 The Lord caused a
lot of trouble for the people of Ashdod and their neighbors. He made sores break
out all over their bodies,[a] and everyone was in a panic.[b] 7 Finally, they said, “The God of Israel did this. He is
the one who caused all this trouble for us and our god Dagon. We’ve got to get
rid of this chest.”
8 The people of Ashdod had all the Philistine rulers come
to Ashdod, and they asked them, “What can we do with the sacred chest that
belongs to the God of Israel?”
“Send it to Gath,” the rulers answered. But after they
took it there, 9 the Lord made sores
break out on everyone in town. The people of Gath were frightened, 10 so they sent the sacred chest to Ekron. But before they
could take it through the town gates, the people of Ekron started screaming,
“They’ve brought the sacred chest that belongs to the God of Israel! It will
kill us and our families too!”
The Philistines Send Back the Sacred Chest
11 The people of Ekron called for another meeting of the
Philistine rulers and told them, “Send this chest back where it belongs. Then it
won’t kill us.”
Everyone was in a panic, because God was causing a lot of
people to die, 12 and those who had survived were suffering from the
sores. They all cried to their gods for help.
6 After the sacred chest had been in Philistia for seven
months,[c] 2 the Philistines called in their priests and
fortunetellers, and asked, “What should we do with this sacred chest? Tell us
how to send it back where it belongs!”
3 “Don’t send it back without a gift,” the priests and
fortunetellers answered. “Send along something to Israel’s God to make up for
taking the chest in the first place. Then you will be healed, and you will find
out why the Lord was
causing you so much trouble.”
4 “What should we send?” the Philistines asked.
The priests and fortunetellers answered:
There are five Philistine rulers, and they all have the
same disease that you have. 5 So make five gold models of the sores and five gold
models of the rats that are wiping out your crops. If you honor the God of
Israel with this gift, maybe he will stop causing trouble for you and your gods
and your crops. 6 Don’t be like the Egyptians and their king. They were
stubborn, but when Israel’s God was finished with them, they had to let Israel
go.
7 Get a new cart and two cows that have young calves and
that have never pulled a cart. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take the calves
back to their barn. 8 Then put the chest on the cart. Put the gold rats and
sores into a bag and put it on the cart next to the chest. Then send it on its
way.
9 Watch to see if the chest goes on up the road to the
Israelite town of Beth-Shemesh. If it goes back to its own country, you will
know that it was the Lord who made
us suffer so badly. But if the chest doesn’t go back to its own country, then
the Lord had
nothing to do with the disease that hit us—it was simply bad
luck.
10 The Philistines followed their advice. They hitched up
the two cows to the cart, but they kept their calves in a barn. 11 Then they put the chest on the cart, along with the bag
that had the gold rats and sores in it.
12 The cows went straight up the road toward Beth-Shemesh,
mooing as they went. The Philistine rulers followed them until they got close to
Beth-Shemesh.
13 The people of Beth-Shemesh were harvesting their
wheat[d] in the valley. When they looked up and saw
the chest, they were so happy that they stopped working and started
celebrating.
14-15 The cows left the road and pulled the cart into a
field that belonged to Joshua from Beth-Shemesh, and they stopped beside a huge
rock. Some men from the tribe of Levi were there. So they took the chest off the
cart and placed it on the rock, and then they did the same thing with the bag of
gold rats and sores. A few other people chopped up the cart and made a fire.
They killed the cows and burned them as sacrifices to the Lord. After that, they offered more
sacrifices.
16 When the five rulers of the Philistines saw what had
happened, they went back to Ekron that same day.
17 That is how the Philistines sent gifts to the Lord to make up
for taking the sacred chest. They sent five gold sores, one each for their towns
of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.18 They also sent one gold rat for each walled town and for
every village that the five Philistine rulers controlled. The huge stone[e] where the Levites set the chest is still
there in Joshua’s field as a reminder of what happened.
The Sacred Chest Is Sent to Kiriath-Jearim
19 Some of the men of Beth-Shemesh looked inside the sacred
chest, and the Lord God killed
seventy[f] of them. This made the people of
Beth-Shemesh very sad, 20 and they started saying, “No other God is like the Lord! Who can go near him and still live? We’ll have to
send the chest away from here. But where can we send it?”
21 They sent messengers to tell the people of
Kiriath-Jearim, “The Philistines have sent back the sacred chest. Why don’t you
take it and keep it there with you?”
7 The people of Kiriath-Jearim got the chest and took it
to Abinadab’s house, which was on a hill in their town. They chose his son
Eleazar to take care of it, 2 and it stayed there for twenty years.
During this time everyone in Israel was very sad and
begged the Lord for
help.[g]
The People of Israel Turn Back to the Lord
3 One day, Samuel told all the people of Israel, “If you
really want to turn back to the Lord, then prove it. Get rid of your foreign idols,
including the ones of the goddess Astarte. Turn to the Lordwith all your heart and worship only him. Then he
will rescue you from the Philistines.”
4 The people got rid of their idols of Baal and Astarte and
began worshiping only the Lord.
5 Then Samuel said, “Tell everyone in Israel to meet
together at Mizpah, and I will pray to theLord for
you.”
6 The Israelites met together at Mizpah with Samuel as
their leader. They drew water from the well and poured it out as an offering to
the Lord. On that same day they went without eating to show
their sorrow, and they confessed they had been unfaithful to the Lord.
The Philistines Attack Israel
7 When the Philistine rulers found out about the meeting at
Mizpah, they sent an army there to attack the people of Israel.
The Israelites were afraid when they heard that the
Philistines were coming. 8 “Don’t stop praying!” they told Samuel. “Ask the Lord our God to
rescue us.”
9-10 Samuel begged the Lord to rescue
Israel, then he sacrificed a young lamb to the Lord. Samuel had not even finished offering the
sacrifice when the Philistines started to attack. But the Lordanswered his prayer and made thunder crash all
around them. The Philistines panicked and ran away. 11 The men of Israel left Mizpah and went after them as far
as the hillside below Beth-Car, killing every enemy soldier they
caught.
12-13 The Philistines were so badly beaten that it was
quite a while before they attacked Israel again. After the battle, Samuel set up
a monument between Mizpah and the rocky cliffs. He named it “Help Monument”[h] to remind Israel how much the Lord had helped
them.
For as long as Samuel lived, the Lord helped
Israel fight the Philistines. 14 The Israelites were even able to recapture their towns
and territory between Ekron and Gath.
Israel was also at peace with the Amorites.[i]
Samuel Is a Leader in Israel
15 Samuel was a leader[j] in Israel all his life. 16 Every year he would go around to the towns of Bethel,
Gilgal, and Mizpah where he served as judge for the people. 17 Then he would go back to his home in Ramah and do the
same thing there. He also had an altar built for the Lord at
Ramah.
Footnotes:
- 5.6 sores. . . bodies: Or “He struck them with bubonic plague.”
- 5.6 panic: Two ancient translations add “Rats came from their ships, and people were dying right and left.”
- 6.1 months: One ancient translation adds “and rats were everywhere” or “and rats ate the crops.”
- 6.13 wheat: The wheat harvest took place in May and June.
- 6.18 stone: A few Hebrew manuscripts; most Hebrew manuscripts “meadow” or “stream.”
- 6.19 seventy: A few Hebrew manuscripts; most Hebrew manuscripts “seventy men, fifty thousand men.”
- 7.2 Israel. . . help: Or “Israel turned to the Lord and begged him for help.”
- 7.12,13 Help Monument: Or “Ebenezer.”
- 7.14 Amorites: In this verse, the non-Israelite peoples of Canaan.
- 7.15; 8.1,2,5 leader: The Hebrew word could mean an army commander, a judge, and a religious leader.
John 6:1-21 (Contemporary English Version)
Feeding Five Thousand
6 Jesus crossed Lake Galilee, which was also known as
Lake Tiberias. 2 A large crowd had seen him work miracles to heal the
sick, and those people went with him. 3-4 It was almost time for the Jewish festival of Passover,
and Jesus went up on a mountain with his disciples and sat down.[a]
5 When Jesus saw the large crowd coming toward him, he
asked Philip, “Where will we get enough food to feed all these people?” 6 He said this to test Philip, since he already knew what
he was going to do.
7 Philip answered, “Don’t you know that it would take
almost a year’s wages[b] just to buy only a little bread for each of
these people?”
8 Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the
disciples. He spoke up and said, 9 “There is a boy here who has five small loaves[c] of barley bread and two fish. But what good
is that with all these people?”
10 The ground was covered with grass, and Jesus told his
disciples to have everyone sit down. About five thousand men were in the
crowd. 11 Jesus took the bread in his hands and gave thanks to
God. Then he passed the bread to the people, and he did the same with the fish,
until everyone had plenty to eat.
12 The people ate all they wanted, and Jesus told his
disciples to gather up the leftovers, so that nothing would be wasted. 13 The disciples gathered them up and filled twelve large
baskets with what was left over from the five barley loaves.
14 After the people had seen Jesus work this miracle,[d] they began saying, “This must be the
Prophet[e] who is to come into the world!” 15 Jesus realized that they would try to force him to be
their king. So he went up on a mountain, where he could be alone.
Jesus Walks on the Water
16 That evening, Jesus' disciples went down to the
lake. 17 They got into a boat and started across for Capernaum.
Later that evening Jesus had still not come to them, 18 and a strong wind was making the water rough.
19 When the disciples had rowed for three or four miles,
they saw Jesus walking on the water. He kept coming closer to the boat, and they
were terrified. 20 But he said, “I am Jesus![f] Don’t be afraid!” 21 The disciples wanted to take him into the boat, but
suddenly the boat reached the shore where they were headed.
Footnotes:
- 6.3,4 sat down: Possibly to teach. Teachers in the ancient world, including Jewish teachers, usually sat down to teach.
- 6.7 almost a year’s wages: The Greek text has “two hundred silver coins.” Each coin was worth the average day’s wages for a worker.
- 6.9 small loaves: These would have been flat and round or in the shape of a bun.
- 6.14 miracle: See the note at 2.11.
- 6.14 the Prophet: See the note at 1.21.
- 6.20 I am Jesus: The Greek text has “I am” (see the note at 8.24).
Psalm 106:13-31 (Contemporary English Version)
13 But they soon forgot
what you had done
and rejected your advice.
14 They became greedy for food
and tested you there
in the desert.
15 So you gave them
what they wanted,
but later you destroyed them
with a horrible disease.
what you had done
and rejected your advice.
14 They became greedy for food
and tested you there
in the desert.
15 So you gave them
what they wanted,
but later you destroyed them
with a horrible disease.
16 Everyone in camp was jealous
of Moses
and of Aaron,
your chosen priest.
17 Dathan and Abiram rebelled,
and the earth opened up
and swallowed them.
18 Then fire broke out
and destroyed all
of their followers.
of Moses
and of Aaron,
your chosen priest.
17 Dathan and Abiram rebelled,
and the earth opened up
and swallowed them.
18 Then fire broke out
and destroyed all
of their followers.
19 At Horeb your people
made and worshiped
the statue
20 of a bull, instead of you,
their glorious God.
21 You worked powerful miracles
to save them from Egypt,
but they forgot about you
22 and the fearsome things
you did at the Red Sea.[a]
23 You were angry and started
to destroy them,
but Moses, your chosen leader,
begged you not to do it.
made and worshiped
the statue
20 of a bull, instead of you,
their glorious God.
21 You worked powerful miracles
to save them from Egypt,
but they forgot about you
22 and the fearsome things
you did at the Red Sea.[a]
23 You were angry and started
to destroy them,
but Moses, your chosen leader,
begged you not to do it.
24 They would not trust
you, Lord,
and they did not like
the promised land.
25 They would not obey you,
and they grumbled
in their tents.
26 So you threatened them
by saying,
“I’ll kill you
out here in the desert!
27 I’ll scatter your children
everywhere in the world.”
you, Lord,
and they did not like
the promised land.
25 They would not obey you,
and they grumbled
in their tents.
26 So you threatened them
by saying,
“I’ll kill you
out here in the desert!
27 I’ll scatter your children
everywhere in the world.”
Footnotes:
- 106.7,9,22 Red Sea: Hebrew yam suph “Sea of Reeds,” one of the marshes or fresh water lakes near the eastern part of the Nile Delta. This identification is based on Exodus 13.17—14.9, which lists the towns on the route of the Israelites before crossing the sea. In the Greek translation of the Scriptures made about 200 (B).(C)., the “Sea of Reeds” was named “Red Sea.”
- 106.28 the dead: Or “lifeless idols.”
- 106.30 Phinehas: The grandson of Aaron, who put two people to death and kept the Lord from being angry with the rest of his people (see Numbers 25.1-13).
Proverbs 14:32-33 (Contemporary English Version)
Footnotes:
[ Living by the Power of God’s Spirit ] If you belong to Christ Jesus, you won’t
be punished. The Holy Spirit will give you life that comes from Christ Jesus and
will set you free from sin and death.
Today's passage is from the Contemporary
English Version.
Thought for the Day
Jewish-American professor and political activist, Elie Wiesel wrote, “Once you
bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing
the world.”
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