Daily Readings for December 15

Daily Readings for December 15
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Job 18

1.Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, 2."How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak. 3.Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight? 4.You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?

5."Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out, The spark of his fire shall not shine. 6.The light shall be dark in his tent. His lamp above him shall be put out. 7.The steps of his strength shall be shortened. His own counsel shall cast him down. 8.For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh. 9.A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him. 10.A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the way. 11.Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall chase him at his heels. 12.His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side. 13.The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members. 14.He shall be rooted out of his tent where he trusts. He shall be brought to the king of terrors. 15.There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulfur shall be scattered on his habitation. 16.His roots shall be dried up beneath. Above shall his branch be cut off. 17.His memory shall perish from the earth. He shall have no name in the street. 18.He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. 19.He shall have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived. 20.Those who come after shall be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened. 21.Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn't know God."

Job 19

1.Then Job answered, 2."How long will you torment me, and crush me with words? 3.You have reproached me ten times. You aren't ashamed that you attack me. 4.If it is true that I have erred, my error remains with myself. 5.If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach; 6.know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

7."Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice. 8.He has walled up my way so that I can't pass, and has set darkness in my paths. 9.He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head. 10.He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree. 11.He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me among his adversaries. 12.His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.

13."He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. 14.My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me. 15.Those who dwell in my house, and my maids, count me for a stranger. I am an alien in their sight. 16.I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth. 17.My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. 18.Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me. 19.All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me. 20.My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21."Have pity on me, have pity on me, you my friends; for the hand of God has touched me. 22.Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

23."Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 24.That with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! 25.But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth. 26.After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God, 27.Whom I, even I, shall see on my side. My eyes shall see, and not as a stranger.

"My heart is consumed within me. 28.If you say, 'How we will persecute him!' because the root of the matter is found in me, 29.be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment."

Zephaniah 1

1.The word of Yahweh¹ which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah. 2.I will utterly sweep away everything off of the surface of the earth, says Yahweh. 3.I will sweep away man and animal. I will sweep away the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and the heaps of rubble with the wicked. I will cut off man from the surface of the earth, says Yahweh. 4.I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place: the name of the idolatrous and pagan priests, 5.those who worship the army of the sky on the housetops, those who worship and swear by Yahweh and also swear by Malcam, 6.those who have turned back from following Yahweh, and those who haven't sought Yahweh nor inquired after him. 7.Be silent at the presence of the Lord² Yahweh, for the day of Yahweh is at hand. For Yahweh has prepared a sacrifice. He has consecrated his guests. 8.It will happen in the day of Yahweh's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, the king's sons, and all those who are clothed with foreign clothing. 9.In that day, I will punish all those who leap over the threshold, who fill their master's house with violence and deceit. 10.In that day, says Yahweh, there will be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, a wailing from the second quarter, and a great crashing from the hills. 11.Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the people of Canaan are undone! All those who were loaded with silver are cut off. 12.It will happen at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their heart, "Yahweh will not do good, neither will he do evil." 13.Their wealth will become a spoil, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won't inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won't drink their wine. 14.The great day of Yahweh is near. It is near, and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of Yahweh. The mighty man cries there bitterly. 15.That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, 16.a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fortified cities, and against the high battlements. 17.I will bring distress on men, that they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against Yahweh, and their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. 18.Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh's wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.

2Peter 3

1.This is now, beloved, the second letter that I have written to you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by reminding you; 2.that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior: 3.knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts, 4.and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." 5.For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and amid water, by the word of God; 6.by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. 7.But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. 8.But don't forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9.The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 10.But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 11.Therefore since all these things will be destroyed like this, what kind of people ought you to be in holy living and godliness, 12.looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, which will cause the burning heavens to be dissolved, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13.But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

14.Therefore, beloved, seeing that you look for these things, be diligent to be found in peace, without blemish and blameless in his sight. 15.Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you; 16.as also in all of his letters, speaking in them of these things. In those, there are some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17.You therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware, lest being carried away with the error of the wicked, you fall from your own steadfastness. 18.But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.