Bible Readings for June 24, 2019

Today our passages are 2 Kings 6:1–7:20; Acts 15:36–16:15; Psalm 142:1-7; and Proverbs 17:24-25. The readings are from the Contemporary English Version. If you find these readings helpful, please consider sending an offering directly to Cove Presbyterian Church, 3404 Main Street, Weirton, West Virginia or through PayPal by using the link below.

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2 Kings 6-7:20 (Contemporary English Version)

2 Kings 6

Elisha Makes an Ax Head Float

 ¹One day the prophets said to Elisha, "The place where we meet with you is too small. ²Why don't we build a new meeting place near the Jordan River? Each of us could get some wood, then we could build it."    "That's a good idea," Elisha replied, "get started."
    ³"Aren't you going with us?" one of the prophets asked.
   "Yes, I'll go," Elisha answered, ⁴and he left with them.
   They went to the Jordan River and began chopping down trees. ⁵While one of the prophets was working, his ax head fell off and dropped into the water. "Oh!" he shouted. "Sir, I borrowed this ax."
    ⁶"Where did it fall in?" Elisha asked. The prophet pointed to the place, and Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water at that spot. The ax head floated to the top of the water. 

    ⁷"Now get it," Elisha told him. And the prophet reached in and grabbed it.     

Elisha Stops an Invasion of the Syrian Army

 ⁸Time after time, when the king of Syria was at war against the Israelites, he met with his officers and announced, "I've decided where we will set up camp."     ⁹Each time, Elisha ^[a] would send this warning to the king of Israel: "Don't go near there. That's where the Syrian troops have set up camp." ^[b] ¹⁰So the king would warn the Israelite troops in that place to be on guard. ¹¹The king of Syria was furious when he found out what was happening. He called in his officers and asked, "Which one of you has been telling the king of Israel our plans?"
    ¹²"None of us, Your Majesty," one of them answered. "It's an Israelite named Elisha. He's a prophet, so he can tell his king everything--even what you say in your own room."
    ¹³"Find out where he is!" the king ordered. "I'll send soldiers to bring him here."
   They learned that Elisha was in the town of Dothan ^[c] and reported it to the king. ¹⁴He ordered his best troops to go there with horses and chariots. They marched out during the night and surrounded the town. ¹⁵When Elisha's servant got up the next morning, he saw that Syrian troops had the town surrounded. "Sir, what are we going to do?" he asked.
    ¹⁶"Don't be afraid," Elisha answered. "There are more troops on our side than on theirs." ¹⁷Then he prayed, "LORD, please help him to see." And the LORD let the servant see that the hill ^[d] was covered with fiery horses and flaming chariots all around Elisha. ¹⁸As the Syrian army came closer, Elisha prayed, "LORD, make those soldiers blind!" And the LORD blinded them with a bright light.
    ¹⁹Elisha told the enemy troops, "You've taken the wrong road and are in the wrong town. Follow me. I'll lead you to the man you're looking for." Elisha led them straight to the capital city of Samaria.
    ²⁰When all the soldiers were inside the city, Elisha prayed, "LORD, now let them see again." The LORD let them see that they were standing in the middle of Samaria.
    ²¹The king of Israel saw them and asked Elisha, "Should I kill them, sir?"
    ²²"No!" Elisha answered. "You didn't capture these troops in battle, so you have no right to kill them. Instead, give them something to eat and drink and let them return to their leader."
    ²³The king ordered a huge meal to be prepared for Syria's army, and when they finished eating, he let them go.
   For a while, the Syrian troops stopped invading Israel's territory.     

King Benhadad of Syria Attacks Samaria

 ²⁴Some time later, King Benhadad of Syria ^[e] called his entire army together, then they marched to Samaria and attacked. ²⁵They kept up the attack until there was nothing to eat in the city. In fact, a donkey's head cost about two pounds of silver, and a small bowl of pigeon droppings ^[f] cost about two ounces of silver. ²⁶One day as the king of Israel ^[g] was walking along the top of the city wall, a woman shouted to him, "Please, Your Majesty, help me!" ²⁷"Let the LORD help you!" the king said. "Do you think I have grain or wine to give you?" ²⁸Then he asked, "What's the matter anyway?"    The woman answered, "Another woman and I were so hungry that we agreed to eat our sons. She said if we ate my son one day, we could eat hers the next day. ²⁹So yesterday we cooked my son and ate him. But today when I went to her house to eat her son, she had hidden him."
    ³⁰The king tore off his clothes in sorrow, and since he was on top of the city wall, the people saw that he was wearing sackcloth underneath. ³¹He said, "I pray that God will punish me terribly, if Elisha's head is still on his shoulders by this time tomorrow." ³²Then he sent a messenger to Elisha.
   Elisha was home at the time, and the important leaders of Israel were meeting with him. Even before the king's messenger arrived, Elisha told the leaders, "That murderer ^[h] is sending someone to cut off my head. When you see him coming, shut the door and don't let him in. I'm sure the king himself will be right behind him." ³³Before Elisha finished talking, the messenger ^[i] came up and said, "The LORD has made all these terrible things happen to us. Why should I think he will help us now?" 

2 Kings 7

 ¹Elisha answered, "I have a message for you. The LORD promises that tomorrow here in Samaria, you will be able to buy a large sack of flour or two large sacks of barley for almost nothing."     ²The chief officer there with the king replied, "I don't believe it! Even if the LORD sent a rainstorm, it couldn't produce that much grain by tomorrow."
   "You will see it happen, but you won't eat any of the food," Elisha warned him.     

The Syrian Army Stops Its Attack

 ³About the same time, four men with leprosy ^[j] were just outside the gate of Samaria. They said to each other, "Why should we sit here, waiting to die? ⁴There's nothing to eat in the city, so we would starve if we went inside. But if we stay out here, we will die for sure. Let's sneak over to the Syrian army camp and surrender. They might kill us, but they might not." ^5-8That evening the four men got up and left for the Syrian camp. As they walked toward the camp, the Lord caused the Syrian troops to hear what sounded like the roar of a huge cavalry. The soldiers said to each other, "Listen! The king of Israel must have hired Hittite and Egyptian troops to attack us. Let's get out of here!" So they ran out of their camp that night, leaving their tents and horses and donkeys.    When the four men with leprosy reached the edge of the Syrian camp, no one was there. They walked into one of the tents, where they ate and drank, before carrying off clothes, as well as silver and gold. They hid all this, then walked into another tent; they took what they wanted and hid it too.
    ⁹They said to each other, "This isn't right. Today is a day to celebrate, and we haven't told anyone else what has happened. If we wait until morning, we will be punished. Let's go to the king's palace right now and tell the good news."
    ¹⁰They went back to Samaria and shouted up to the guards at the gate, "We've just come from the Syrian army camp, and all the soldiers are gone! The tents are empty, and the horses and donkeys are still tied up. We didn't see or hear anybody."
    ¹¹The guards reported the news to the king's palace. ¹²The king got out of bed and said to his officers, "I know what those Syrians are doing. They know we're starving, so they're hiding in the fields, hoping we will go out to look for food. When we do, they can capture us and take over our city."
    ¹³One of his officers replied, "We have a few horses left--why don't we let some men take five of them and go to the Syrian camp and see what's happening? We're going to die anyway like those who have already died." ^[k] ¹⁴They found two chariots, and the king commanded the men to find out what had happened to the Syrian troops. ¹⁵The men rode as far as the Jordan River. All along the way they saw clothes and equipment that the Syrians had thrown away as they escaped. Then they went back to the king and told him what they had seen.
    ¹⁶At once the people went to the Syrian camp and carried off what was left. They took so much that a large sack of flour and two large sacks of barley sold for almost nothing, just as the LORD had promised.
    ¹⁷The king of Israel had put his chief officer in charge of the gate, but he died when the people trampled him as they rushed out of the city. ¹⁸Earlier, when the king was at Elisha's house, Elisha had told him that flour or barley would sell for almost nothing. ¹⁹But the officer refused to believe that even the LORD could do that. So Elisha warned him that he would see it happen, but would not eat any of the food. ²⁰And that's exactly what happened--the officer was trampled to death.
    

Footnotes:

1. 2 Kings 6:9 Elisha: Hebrew "the man of God."
2. 2 Kings 6:9 have set up camp: Or "are going."
3. 2 Kings 6:13 Dothan: About ten miles north of Samaria.
4. 2 Kings 6:17 the hill: The hill on which the town was built.
5. 2 Kings 6:24 King Benhadad of Syria: This may or may not be the same Benhadad mentioned in 1 Kings 20.1. Several of the Syrian kings were named Benhadad.
6. 2 Kings 6:25 pigeon droppings: This may have been used for food or to burn for fuel. It also may have been a popular name for roasted beans or the shells of certain seeds.
7. 2 Kings 6:26 the king of Israel: Probably either Jehoahaz or Jehoash, but possibly even Joram.
8. 2 Kings 6:32 That murderer: Hebrew "That murderer's son."
9. 2 Kings 6:33 messenger: Or "king" (see 7.2,18); the two Hebrew words are very similar.
10. 2 Kings 7:3 leprosy: See the note at 5.1.
11. 2 Kings 7:13 We're going. . . died: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.

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Acts 15:36-16:15 (Contemporary English Version)

Paul and Barnabas Go Their Separate Ways

 ³⁶Sometime later Paul said to Barnabas, "Let's go back and visit the Lord's followers in the cities where we preached his message. Then we will know how they are doing." ³⁷Barnabas wanted to take along John, whose other name was Mark. ³⁸But Paul did not want to, because Mark had left them in Pamphylia and had stopped working with them.     ³⁹Paul and Barnabas argued, then each of them went his own way. Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus, ⁴⁰but Paul took Silas and left after the followers had placed them in God's care. ⁴¹They traveled through Syria and Cilicia, encouraging the churches.
    

Acts 16

Timothy Works with Paul and Silas

 ¹Paul and Silas went back to Derbe and Lystra, where there was a follower named Timothy. His mother was also a follower. She was Jewish, and his father was Greek. ²The Lord's followers in Lystra and Iconium said good things about Timothy, ³and Paul wanted him to go with them. But Paul first had him circumcised, because all the Jewish people around there knew that Timothy's father was Greek. ^[a] ⁴As Paul and the others went from city to city, they told the followers what the apostles and leaders in Jerusalem had decided, and they urged them to follow these instructions. ⁵The churches became stronger in their faith, and each day more people put their faith in the Lord.     

Paul's Vision in Troas

 ⁶Paul and his friends went through Phrygia and Galatia, but the Holy Spirit would not let them preach in Asia. ⁷After they arrived in Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not let them. ⁸So they went on through ^[b] Mysia until they came to Troas. ⁹During the night, Paul had a vision of someone from Macedonia who was standing there and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" ¹⁰After Paul had seen the vision, we began looking for a way to go to Macedonia. We were sure that God had called us to preach the good news there.     

Lydia Becomes a Follower of the Lord

 ¹¹We sailed straight from Troas to Samothrace, and the next day we arrived in Neapolis. ¹²From there we went to Philippi, which is a Roman colony in the first district of Macedonia. ^[c] We spent several days in Philippi. ¹³Then on the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to a place by the river, where we thought there would be a Jewish meeting place for prayer. We sat down and talked with the women who came. ¹⁴One of them was Lydia, who was from the city of Thyatira and sold expensive purple cloth. She was a worshiper of the Lord God, and he made her willing to accept what Paul was saying. ¹⁵Then after she and her family were baptized, she kept on begging us, "If you think I really do have faith in the Lord, come stay in my home." Finally, we accepted her invitation.   

  

Footnotes:

1. Acts 16:3 had him circumcised. . . Timothy's father was Greek: Timothy would not have been acceptable to the Jews unless he had been circumcised, and Greeks did not circumcise their sons.
2. Acts 16:8 went on through: Or "passed by."
3. Acts 16:12 in the first district of Macedonia: Some manuscripts have "and the leading city of Macedonia."

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Psalm 142:1-7 (Contemporary English Version)

Psalm 142

(A special psalm and a prayer by David when he was in the cave.)

A Prayer for Help

 ¹I pray to you, LORD.    I beg for mercy.
    ²I tell you all of my worries
   and my troubles,
    ³and whenever I feel low,
   you are there to guide me.
   A trap has been hidden
   along my pathway.
    ⁴Even if you look,
   you won't see anyone
   who cares enough
   to walk beside me.
   There is no place to hide,
   and no one who really cares.
    ⁵I pray to you, LORD!
   You are my place of safety,
   and you are my choice
   in the land of the living.
   Please answer my prayer.
   I am completely helpless.
    ⁶Help! They are chasing me,
   and they are too strong.
    ⁷Rescue me from this prison,
   so I can praise your name.
   And when your people notice
   your wonderful kindness to me,
   they will rush to my side.

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Proverbs 17:24-25 (Contemporary English Version)

²⁴Anyone with wisdom knows
   what makes good sense,
   but fools can never
   make up their minds.
    ²⁵Foolish children bring sorrow
   to their father
   and pain to their mother.

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Verse of the Day

“But the Lord can be trusted to make you strong and protect you from harm.” - 2 Thessalonians 3:3 

Today's passage is from the Contemporary English Version.

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Thought for the Day

American short story writer, journalist, poet, and Civil War veteran, Ambrose Bierce wrote, “Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.”

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A Joke for Today

Man: Just look at that young person with the short hair and blue jeans. Is it a boy or a girl?

Bystander: It's a girl. She's my daughter.

Man: Oh, please forgive me, sir. I had no idea you were her father.

Bystander: I'm not. I'm her mother.

Bible Readings for April 7, 2014

Today our passages are Deuteronomy 31:1–32:27; Luke 12:8-34; Psalm 78:32-55; and Proverbs 12:21-23. 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.

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Deuteronomy 31-32:27 (The Message)

Deuteronomy 31

The Charge

^1-2Moses went on and addressed these words to all Israel. He said, "I'm 120 years old today. I can't get about as I used to. And God told me, 'You're not going to cross this Jordan River.' ^3-5 "God, your God, will cross the river ahead of you and destroy the nations in your path so that you may dispossess them. (And Joshua will cross the river before you, as God said he would.) God will give the nations the same treatment he gave the kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and their land; he'll destroy them. God will hand the nations over to you, and you'll treat them exactly as I have commanded you. ⁶ "Be strong. Take courage. Don't be intimidated. Don't give them a second thought because God, your God, is striding ahead of you. He's right there with you. He won't let you down; he won't leave you."
^7-8 Then Moses summoned Joshua. He said to him with all Israel watching, "Be strong. Take courage. You will enter the land with this people, this land that God promised their ancestors that he'd give them. You will make them the proud possessors of it. God is striding ahead of you. He's right there with you. He won't let you down; he won't leave you. Don't be intimidated. Don't worry."

^9-13 Moses wrote out this Revelation and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Chest of the Covenant of God, and to all the leaders of Israel. And he gave these orders: "At the end of every seven years, the Year-All-Debts-Are-Canceled, during the pilgrim Festival of Booths when everyone in Israel comes to appear in the Presence of God, your God, at the place he designates, read out this Revelation to all Israel, with everyone listening. Gather the people together—men, women, children, and the foreigners living among you—so they can listen well, so they may learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, and diligently keep everything in this Revelation. And do this so that their children, who don't yet know all this, will also listen and learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, for as long as you live on the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess."
^14-15 God spoke to Moses: "You are about to die. So call Joshua. Meet me in the Tent of Meeting so that I can commission him."
So Moses and Joshua went and stationed themselves in the Tent of Meeting. God appeared in the Tent in a Pillar of Cloud. The Cloud was near the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.
^16-18 God spoke to Moses: "You're about to die and be buried with your ancestors. You'll no sooner be in the grave than this people will be up and whoring after the foreign gods of this country that they are entering. They will abandon me and violate my Covenant that I've made with them. I'll get angry, oh so angry! I'll walk off and leave them on their own, won't so much as look back at them. Then many calamities and disasters will devastate them because they are defenseless. They'll say, 'Isn't it because our God wasn't here that all this evil has come upon us?' But I'll stay out of their lives, keep looking the other way because of all their evil: they took up with other gods!
^19-21 "But for right now, copy down this song and teach the People of Israel to sing it by heart. They'll have it then as my witness against them. When I bring them into the land that I promised to their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they eat and become full and get fat and then begin fooling around with other gods and worshiping them, and then things start falling apart, many terrible things happening, this song will be there with them as a witness to who they are and what went wrong. Their children won't forget this song; they'll be singing it. Don't think I don't know what they are already scheming to do, and they're not even in the land yet, this land I promised them."
²² So Moses wrote down this song that very day and taught it to the People of Israel.
²³ Then God commanded Joshua son of Nun saying, "Be strong. Take courage. You will lead the People of Israel into the land I promised to give them. And I'll be right there with you."
^24-26 After Moses had finished writing down the words of this Revelation in a book, right down to the last word, he ordered the Levites who were responsible for carrying the Chest of the Covenant of God, saying, "Take this Book of Revelation and place it alongside the Chest of the Covenant of God, your God. Keep it there as a witness.
^27-29 "I know what rebels you are, how stubborn and willful you can be. Even today, while I'm still alive and present with you, you're rebellious against God. How much worse when I've died! So gather the leaders of the tribes and the officials here. I have something I need to say directly to them with Heaven and Earth as witnesses. I know that after I die you're going to make a mess of things, abandoning the way I commanded, inviting all kinds of evil consequences in the days ahead. You're determined to do evil in defiance of God—I know you are—deliberately provoking his anger by what you do."
³⁰ So with everyone in Israel gathered and listening, Moses taught them the words of this song, from start to finish.

Deuteronomy 32

The Song

^1-5 Listen, Heavens, I have something to tell you. Attention, Earth, I've got a mouth full of words. My teaching, let it fall like a gentle rain,
my words arrive like morning dew,
Like a sprinkling rain on new grass,
like spring showers on the garden.
For it's God's Name I'm preaching—
respond to the greatness of our God!
The Rock: His works are perfect,
and the way he works is fair and just;
A God you can depend upon, no exceptions,
a straight-arrow God.
His messed-up, mixed-up children, his non-children,
throw mud at him but none of it sticks.

^6-7 Don't you realize it is God you are treating like this?
This is crazy; don't you have any sense of reverence?
Isn't this your father who created you,
who made you and gave you a place on Earth?
Read up on what happened before you were born;
dig into the past, understand your roots.
Ask your parents what it was like before you were born;
ask the old-ones, they'll tell you a thing or two.

^8-9 When the High God gave the nations their stake,
gave them their place on Earth,
He put each of the peoples within boundaries
under the care of divine guardians.
But God himself took charge of his people,
took Jacob on as his personal concern.

^10-14 He found him out in the wilderness,
in an empty, windswept wasteland.
He threw his arms around him, lavished attention on him,
guarding him as the apple of his eye.
He was like an eagle hovering over its nest,
overshadowing its young,
Then spreading its wings, lifting them into the air,
teaching them to fly.
God alone led him;
there was not a foreign god in sight.
God lifted him onto the hilltops,
so he could feast on the crops in the fields.
He fed him honey from the rock,
oil from granite crags,
Curds of cattle and the milk of sheep,
the choice cuts of lambs and goats,
Fine Bashan rams, high-quality wheat,
and the blood of grapes: you drank good wine!

^15-18 Jeshurun put on weight and bucked;
you got fat, became obese, a tub of lard.
He abandoned the God who made him,
he mocked the Rock of his salvation.
They made him jealous with their foreign newfangled gods,
and with obscenities they vexed him no end.
They sacrificed to no-god demons,
gods they knew nothing about,
The latest in gods, fresh from the market,
gods your ancestors would never call "gods."
You walked out on the Rock who gave you your life,
forgot the birth-God who brought you into the world.

^19-25 God saw it and turned on his heel,
angered and hurt by his sons and daughters.
He said, "From now on I'm looking the other way.
Wait and see what happens to them.
Oh, they're a turned-around, upside-down generation!
Who knows what they'll do from one moment to the next?
They've goaded me with their no-gods,
infuriated me with their hot-air gods;
I'm going to goad them with a no-people,
with a hollow nation incense them.
My anger started a fire,
a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol,
Then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops,
setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire.
I'll pile catastrophes on them,
I'll shoot my arrows at them:
Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease;
I'll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest
and venomous creatures to strike from the dust.
Killing in the streets,
terror in the houses,
Young men and virgins alike struck down,
and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men."

^26-27 I could have said, "I'll hack them to pieces,
wipe out all trace of them from the Earth,"
Except that I feared the enemy would grab the chance
to take credit for all of it,
Crowing, "Look what we did!
God had nothing to do with this."

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Luke 12:8-34 (The Message)

^8-9"Stand up for me among the people you meet and the Son of Man will stand up for you before all God's angels. But if you pretend you don't know me, do you think I'll defend you before God's angels?

¹⁰"If you bad-mouth the Son of Man out of misunderstanding or ignorance, that can be overlooked. But if you're knowingly attacking God himself, taking aim at the Holy Spirit, that won't be overlooked.

^11-12"When they drag you into their meeting places, or into police courts and before judges, don't worry about defending yourselves—what you'll say or how you'll say it. The right words will be there. The Holy Spirit will give you the right words when the time comes."

The Story of the Greedy Farmer

¹³Someone out of the crowd said, "Teacher, order my brother to give me a fair share of the family inheritance."

¹⁴He replied, "Mister, what makes you think it's any of my business to be a judge or mediator for you?"

¹⁵Speaking to the people, he went on, "Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot."

^16-19Then he told them this story: "The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: 'What can I do? My barn isn't big enough for this harvest.' Then he said, 'Here's what I'll do: I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I'll gather in all my grain and goods, and I'll say to myself, Self, you've done well! You've got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!'

²⁰"Just then God showed up and said, 'Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?'

²¹"That's what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God."

Steep Yourself in God-Reality

^22-24He continued this subject with his disciples. "Don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or if the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your inner life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more.

^25-28"Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can't even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don't fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

^29-32"What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.

^33-34"Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can't go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.

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Psalm 78:32-55 (The Message)

^32-37 And—can you believe it?—they kept right on sinning;
all those wonders and they still wouldn't believe!
So their lives dribbled off to nothing—
nothing to show for their lives but a ghost town.
When he cut them down, they came running for help;
they turned and pled for mercy.
They gave witness that God was their rock,
that High God was their redeemer,
But they didn't mean a word of it;
they lied through their teeth the whole time.
They could not have cared less about him,
wanted nothing to do with his Covenant.

^38-55 And God? Compassionate!
Forgave the sin! Didn't destroy!
Over and over he reined in his anger,
restrained his considerable wrath.
He knew what they were made of;
he knew there wasn't much to them,
How often in the desert they had spurned him,
tried his patience in those wilderness years.
Time and again they pushed him to the limit,
provoked Israel's Holy God.
How quickly they forgot what he'd done,
forgot their day of rescue from the enemy,
When he did miracles in Egypt,
wonders on the plain of Zoan.
He turned the River and its streams to blood—
not a drop of water fit to drink.
He sent flies, which ate them alive,
and frogs, which bedeviled them.
He turned their harvest over to caterpillars,
everything they had worked for to the locusts.
He flattened their grapevines with hail;
a killing frost ruined their orchards.
He pounded their cattle with hail,
let thunderbolts loose on their herds.
His anger flared,
a wild firestorm of havoc,
An advance guard of disease-carrying angels
to clear the ground, preparing the way before him.
He didn't spare those people,
he let the plague rage through their lives.
He killed all the Egyptian firstborns,
lusty infants, offspring of Ham's virility.
Then he led his people out like sheep,
took his flock safely through the wilderness.
He took good care of them; they had nothing to fear.
The Sea took care of their enemies for good.
He brought them into his holy land,
this mountain he claimed for his own.
He scattered everyone who got in their way;
he staked out an inheritance for them—
the tribes of Israel all had their own places.

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Proverbs 12:21-23 (The Message)

²¹ No evil can overwhelm a good person,
but the wicked have their hands full of it.

²² God can't stomach liars;
he loves the company of those who keep their word.

²³ Prudent people don't flaunt their knowledge;
talkative fools broadcast their silliness.

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Verse of the Day

“I have died, but Christ lives in me. And I now live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.” - Galatians 2:20

Today's passage is from the Contemporary English Version.

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 Thought for the Day

American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist, Ambrose Bierce wrote, “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”