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Daily Readings for August 1
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2Samuel 18
1.David numbered the people who were with him, and set captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them. 2.David sent forth the people, a third part under the hand of Joab, and a third part under the hand of Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab's brother, and a third part under the hand of Ittai the Gittite. The king said to the people, "I will surely go forth with you myself also."
3.But the people said, "You shall not go forth; for if we flee away, they will not care for us; neither if half of us die, will they care for us. But you are worth ten thousand of us. Therefore now it is better that you are ready to help us out of the city."
4.The king said to them, "I will do what seems best to you."
The king stood beside the gate, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands. 5.The king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, "Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom." All the people heard when the king commanded all the captains concerning Absalom.
6.So the people went out into the field against Israel: and the battle was in the forest of Ephraim. 7.The people of Israel were struck there before the servants of David, and there was a great slaughter there that day of twenty thousand men. 8.For the battle was there spread over the surface of all the country; and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. 9.Absalom happened to meet the servants of David. Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the sky and earth; and the mule that was under him went on. 10.A certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, "Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak."
11.Joab said to the man who told him, "Behold, you saw it, and why didn't you strike him there to the ground? I would have given you ten pieces of silver, and a sash."
12.The man said to Joab, "Though I should receive a thousand pieces of silver in my hand, I still wouldn't put forth my hand against the king's son; for in our hearing the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, saying, 'Beware that none touch the young man Absalom.' 13.Otherwise if I had dealt falsely against his life (and there is no matter hidden from the king), then you yourself would have set yourself against me."
14.Then Joab said, "I'm not going to wait like this with you." He took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. 15.Ten young men who bore Joab's armor surrounded and struck Absalom, and killed him. 16.Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel; for Joab held back the people. 17.They took Absalom, and cast him into the great pit in the forest, and raised over him a very great heap of stones. Then all Israel fled everyone to his tent. 18.Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar, which is in the king's dale; for he said, "I have no son to keep my name in memory." He called the pillar after his own name; and it is called Absalom's monument, to this day. 19.Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said, "Let me now run, and bear the king news, how that Yahweh has avenged him of his enemies."
20.Joab said to him, "You shall not be the bearer of news this day, but you shall bear news another day. But today you shall bear no news, because the king's son is dead."
21.Then Joab said to the Cushite, "Go, tell the king what you have seen!" The Cushite bowed himself to Joab, and ran.
22.Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said yet again to Joab, "But come what may, please let me also run after the Cushite."
Joab said, "Why do you want to run, my son, since that you will have no reward for the news?"
23."But come what may," he said, "I will run."
He said to him, "Run!" Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the Plain, and outran the Cushite.
24.Now David was sitting between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate to the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, a man running alone. 25.The watchman cried, and told the king. The king said, "If he is alone, there is news in his mouth." He came closer and closer.
26.The watchman saw another man running; and the watchman called to the porter, and said, "Behold, a man running alone!"
The king said, "He also brings news."
27.The watchman said, "I think the running of the first one is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok."
The king said, "He is a good man, and comes with good news."
28.Ahimaaz called, and said to the king, "All is well." He bowed himself before the king with his face to the earth, and said, "Blessed is Yahweh your God, who has delivered up the men who lifted up their hand against my lord the king!"
29.The king said, "Is it well with the young man Absalom?"
Ahimaaz answered, "When Joab sent the king's servant, even me your servant, I saw a great tumult, but I don't know what it was."
30.The king said, "Turn aside, and stand here." He turned aside, and stood still.
31.Behold, the Cushite came. The Cushite said, "News for my lord the king; for Yahweh has avenged you this day of all those who rose up against you."
32.The king said to the Cushite, "Is it well with the young man Absalom?"
The Cushite answered, "May the enemies of my lord the king, and all who rise up against you to do you harm, be as that young man is."
33.The king was much moved, and went up to the room over the gate, and wept. As he went, he said, "My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! I wish I had died for you, Absalom, my son, my son!"
Jeremiah 22
1.Thus said Yahweh: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, 2.Say, Hear the word of Yahweh, king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter in by these gates. 3.Thus says Yahweh: Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the fatherless, nor the widow; neither shed innocent blood in this place. 4.For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house kings sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he, and his servants, and his people. 5.But if you will not hear these words, I swear by myself, says Yahweh, that this house shall become a desolation. 6.For thus says Yahweh concerning the house of the king of Judah: You are Gilead to me, [and] the head of Lebanon; [yet] surely I will make you a wilderness, [and] cities which are not inhabited. 7.I will prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons; and they shall cut down your choice cedars, and cast them into the fire. 8.Many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, Why has Yahweh done thus to this great city? 9.Then they shall answer, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh their God, and worshiped other gods, and served them. 10.Don't weep for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep bitterly for him who goes away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. 11.For thus says Yahweh touching Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, [and] who went forth out of this place: He shall not return there any more. 12.But in the place where they have led him captive, there shall he die, and he shall see this land no more. 13.Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his rooms by injustice; who uses his neighbor's service without wages, and doesn't give him his hire; 14.who says, I will build me a wide house and spacious rooms, and cuts him out windows; and it is ceiling with cedar, and painted with vermilion. 15.Shall you reign, because you strive to excel in cedar? Didn't your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? then it was well with him. 16.He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Wasn't this to know me? says Yahweh. 17.But your eyes and your heart are not but for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it. 18.Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: they shall not lament for him, [saying], Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! They shall not lament for him, [saying] Ah lord! or, Ah his glory! 19.He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem. 20.Go up to Lebanon, and cry; and lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers are destroyed. 21.I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your way from your youth, that you didn't obey my voice. 22.The wind shall feed all your shepherds, and your lovers shall go into captivity: surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness. 23.Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail! 24.As I live, says Yahweh, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet on my right hand, yet would I pluck you there; 25.and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26.I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die. 27.But to the land whereunto their soul longs to return, there shall they not return. 28.Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel in which none delights? why are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they don't know? 29.O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of Yahweh. 30.Thus says Yahweh, Write you this man childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling in Judah.
Romans 9
1.I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying, my conscience testifying with me in the Holy Spirit, 2.that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. 3.For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers' sake, my relatives according to the flesh, 4.who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises; 5.of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen.
6.But it is not as though the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel. 7.Neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children. But, "In Isaac will your seed be called."[23] 8.That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as a seed. 9.For this is a word of promise, "At the appointed time I will come, and Sarah will have a son."[24] 10.Not only so, but Rebecca also conceived by one, by our father Isaac. 11.For being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls,25 12.it was said to her, "The elder will serve the younger."[26] 13.Even as it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."[27]
14.What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? May it never be! 15.For he said to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."[28] 16.So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy. 17.For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."[29] 18.So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. 19.You will say then to me, "Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?" 20.But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?"[30] 21.Or hasn't the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? 22.What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath made for destruction, 23.and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, 24.us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? 25.As he says also in Hosea, "I will call them 'my people,' which were not my people; and her 'beloved,' who was not beloved."[31] 26."It will be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' There they will be called 'children of the living God.'"[32]
27.Isaiah cries concerning Israel, "If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved; 28.for He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth."[33]
29.As Isaiah has said before, "Unless the Lord of Armies34 had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah."[35]
30.What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn't follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; 31.but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn't arrive at the law of righteousness. 32.Why? Because they didn't seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone; 33.even as it is written, "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed."[36]