Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Daily Readings for December 5
Click the arrow above to the left of the audio strip to start audio for today
Job 6
1.Then Job answered, 2."Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances! 3.For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore have my words been rash. 4.For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me. 5.Does the wild donkey bray when he has grass? Or does the ox low over his fodder? 6.Can that which has no flavor be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg? 7.My soul refuses to touch them. They are as loathsome food to me.
8."Oh that I might have my request, that God would grant the thing that I long for, 9.even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off! 10.Be it still my consolation, yes, let me exult in pain that doesn't spare, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One. 11.What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be patient? 12.Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of brass? 13.Isn't it that I have no help in me, That wisdom is driven quite from me?
14."To him who is ready to faint, kindness should be shown from his friend; even to him who forsakes the fear of the Almighty. 15.My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away; 16.Which are black by reason of the ice, in which the snow hides itself. 17.In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place. 18.The caravans that travel beside them turn aside. They go up into the waste, and perish. 19.The caravans of Tema looked. The companies of Sheba waited for them. 20.They were distressed because they were confident. They came there, and were confounded. 21.For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid. 22.Did I say, 'Give to me?' or, 'Offer a present for me from your substance?' 23.or, 'Deliver me from the adversary's hand?' or, 'Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors?'
24."Teach me, and I will hold my peace. Cause me to understand wherein I have erred. 25.How forcible are words of uprightness! But your reproof, what does it reprove? 26.Do you intend to reprove words, since the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind? 27.Yes, you would even cast lots for the fatherless, and make merchandise of your friend. 28.Now therefore be pleased to look at me, for surely I shall not lie to your face. 29.Please return. Let there be no injustice. Yes, return again. My cause is righteous. 30.Is there injustice on my tongue? Can't my taste discern mischievous things?
Job 7
1."Isn't a man forced to labor on earth? Aren't his days like the days of a hired hand? 2.As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages, 3.so am I made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me. 4.When I lie down, I say, 'When shall I arise, and the night be gone?' I toss and turn until the dawning of the day. 5.My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh. 6.My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and are spent without hope. 7.Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good. 8.The eye of him who sees me shall see me no more. Your eyes shall be on me, but I shall not be. 9.As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol3 shall come up no more. 10.He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.
11."Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12.Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me? 13.When I say, 'My bed shall comfort me. My couch shall ease my complaint;' 14.then you scare me with dreams, and terrify me through visions: 15.so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones. 16.I loathe my life. I don't want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath. 17.What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him, 18.that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment? 19.How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle? 20.If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself? 21.Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now shall I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I shall not be."
Micah 2
1.Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. 2.They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. 3.Therefore thus says Yahweh: "Behold, I am planning against these people a disaster, from which you will not remove your necks, neither will you walk haughtily; for it is an evil time. 4.In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, 'We are utterly ruined! My people's possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!'" 5.Therefore you will have no one who divides the land by lot in the assembly of Yahweh. 6."Don't prophesy!" They prophesy. "Don't prophesy about these things. Disgrace won't overtake us." 7.Shall it be said, O house of Jacob: "Is the Spirit of Yahweh angry? Are these his doings? Don't my words do good to him who walks blamelessly?" 8.But lately my people have risen up as an enemy. You strip the robe and clothing from those who pass by without a care, returning from battle. 9.You drive the women of my people out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my blessing forever. 10.Arise, and depart! For this is not your resting place, because of uncleanness that destroys, even with a grievous destruction. 11.If a man walking in a spirit of falsehood lies: "I will prophesy to you of wine and of strong drink;" he would be the prophet of this people. 12.I will surely assemble, Jacob, all of you; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as a flock in the midst of their pasture; they will swarm with people. 13.He who breaks open the way goes up before them. They break through the gate, and go out. And their king passes on before them, with Yahweh at their head.
Hebrews 12
1.Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2.looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3.For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don't grow weary, fainting in your souls. 4.You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin; 5.and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, "My son, don't take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him; 6.For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives."45
7.It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn't discipline? 8.But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children. 9.Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? 10.For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. 11.All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby. 12.Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees,46 13.and make straight paths for your feet,47 so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. 14.Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man will see the Lord, 15.looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and many be defiled by it; 16.lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal. 17.For you know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for a change of mind though he sought it diligently with tears. 18.For you have not come to a mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, darkness, storm, 19.the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which those who heard it begged that not one more word should be spoken to them, 20.for they could not stand that which was commanded, "If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned48;"49 21.and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, "I am terrified and trembling."50
22.But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels, 23.to the general assembly and assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24.to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant,51 and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.
25.See that you don't refuse him who speaks. For if they didn't escape when they refused him who warned on the earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven, 26.whose voice shook the earth then, but now he has promised, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens."52 27.This phrase, "Yet once more," signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. 28.Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can't be shaken, let us have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29.for our God is a consuming fire.53