Daily Readings for August 2

Daily Readings for August 2
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2Samuel 19

1.It was told Joab, "Behold, the king weeps and mourns for Absalom." 2.The victory that day was turned into mourning to all the people; for the people heard it said that day, "The king grieves for his son."

3.The people sneaked into the city that day, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. 4.The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, "My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son!"

5.Joab came into the house to the king, and said, "You have shamed this day the faces of all your servants, who this day have saved your life, and the lives of your sons and of your daughters, and the lives of your wives, and the lives of your concubines; 6.in that you love those who hate you, and hate those who love you. For you have declared this day, that princes and servants are nothing to you. For today I perceive that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it would have pleased you well. 7.Now therefore arise, go out, and speak to comfort your servants; for I swear by Yahweh, if you don't go out, not a man will stay with you this night. That would be worse to you than all the evil that has happened to you from your youth until now."

8.Then the king arose, and sat in the gate. They told to all the people, saying, "Behold, the king is sitting in the gate." All the people came before the king. Now Israel had fled every man to his tent. 9.All the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, "The king delivered us out of the hand of our enemies, and he saved us out of the hand of the Philistines; and now he has fled out of the land from Absalom. 10.Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why don't you speak a word of bringing the king back?"

11.King David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, saying, "Speak to the elders of Judah, saying, 'Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house? Since the speech of all Israel has come to the king, to return him to his house. 12.You are my brothers, you are my bone and my flesh. Why then are you the last to bring back the king?' 13.Say to Amasa, 'Aren't you my bone and my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if you aren't captain of the army before me continually in the room of Joab.'" 14.He bowed the heart of all the men of Judah, even as one man; so that they sent to the king, saying, "Return, you and all your servants."

15.So the king returned, and came to the Jordan. Judah came to Gilgal, to go to meet the king, to bring the king over the Jordan. 16.Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite, who was of Bahurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet king David. 17.There were a thousand men of Benjamin with him, and Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they went through the Jordan in the presence of the king. 18.A ferry boat went to bring over the king's household, and to do what he thought good. Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king, when he had come over the Jordan. 19.He said to the king, "Don't let my lord impute iniquity to me, nor remember that which your servant did perversely the day that my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart. 20.For your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore, behold, I have come this day the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king."

21.But Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered, "Shall Shimei not be put to death for this, because he cursed Yahweh's anointed?"

22.David said, "What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be adversaries to me? Shall there any man be put to death this day in Israel? For don't I know that I am this day king over Israel?" 23.The king said to Shimei, "You shall not die." The king swore to him.

24.Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king; and he had neither groomed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came home in peace. 25.It happened, when he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king, that the king said to him, "Why didn't you go with me, Mephibosheth?"

26.He answered, "My lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For your servant said, I will saddle me a donkey, that I may ride thereon, and go with the king; because your servant is lame. 27.He has slandered your servant to my lord the king; but my lord the king is as an angel of God. Do therefore what is good in your eyes. 28.For all my father's house were but dead men before my lord the king; yet you set your servant among those who ate at your own table. What right therefore have I yet that I should cry any more to the king?"

29.The king said to him, "Why do you speak any more of your matters? I say, you and Ziba divide the land."

30.Mephibosheth said to the king, "Yes, let him take all, because my lord the king has come in peace to his own house." 31.Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim; and he went over the Jordan with the king, to conduct him over the Jordan. 32.Now Barzillai was a very aged man, even eighty years old: and he had provided the king with sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim; for he was a very great man. 33.The king said to Barzillai, "Come over with me, and I will sustain you with me in Jerusalem." 34.Barzillai said to the king, "How many are the days of the years of my life, that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem? 35.I am this day eighty years old. Can I discern between good and bad? Can your servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be yet a burden to my lord the king? 36.Your servant would but just go over the Jordan with the king. Why should the king repay me with such a reward? 37.Please let your servant turn back again, that I may die in my own city, by the grave of my father and my mother. But behold, your servant Chimham; let him go over with my lord the king; and do to him what shall seem good to you."

38.The king answered, "Chimham shall go over with me, and I will do to him that which shall seem good to you. Whatever you require of me, that I will do for you."

39.All the people went over the Jordan, and the king went over. Then the king kissed Barzillai, and blessed him; and he returned to his own place. 40.So the king went over to Gilgal, and Chimham went over with him. All the people of Judah brought the king over, and also half the people of Israel. 41.Behold, all the men of Israel came to the king, and said to the king, "Why have our brothers the men of Judah stolen you away, and brought the king, and his household, over the Jordan, and all David's men with him?"

42.All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, "Because the king is a close relative to us. Why then are you angry about this matter? Have we eaten at all at the king's cost? Or has he given us any gift?"

43.The men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, "We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more claim to David than you. Why then did you despise us, that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king?" The words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

Jeremiah 23

1.Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says Yahweh. 2.Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings, says Yahweh. 3.I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4.I will set up shepherds over them, who shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, says Yahweh. 5.Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6.In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name by which he shall be called: Yahweh our righteousness. 7.Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that they shall no more say, As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; 8.but, As Yahweh lives, who brought up and who led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had driven them. They shall dwell in their own land. 9.Concerning the prophets. My heart within me is broken, all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of Yahweh, and because of his holy words. 10.For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourns; the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right; 11.for both prophet and priest are profane; yes, in my house have I found their wickedness, says Yahweh. 12.Therefore their way shall be to them as slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation, says Yahweh. 13.I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. 14.In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none does return from his wickedness: they are all of them become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah. 15.Therefore thus says Yahweh of Armies concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem is ungodliness gone forth into all the land. 16.Thus says Yahweh of Armies, Don't listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you: they teach you vanity; they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh. 17.They say continually to those who despise me, Yahweh has said, You shall have peace; and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, No evil shall come on you. 18.For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he should perceive and hear his word? who has marked my word, and heard it? 19.Behold, the storm of Yahweh, [even his] wrath, is gone forth, yes, a whirling storm: it shall burst on the head of the wicked. 20.The anger of Yahweh shall not return, until he has executed, and until he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days you shall understand it perfectly. 21.I sent not these prophets, yet they ran: I didn't speak to them, yet they prophesied. 22.But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. 23.Am I a God at hand, says Yahweh, and not a God afar off? 24.Can any hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him? says Yahweh. Don't I fill heaven and earth? says Yahweh. 25.I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. 26.How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own heart? 27.who think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name for Baal. 28.The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat? says Yahweh. 29.Isn't my word like fire? says Yahweh; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? 30.Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says Yahweh, who steal my words everyone from his neighbor. 31.Behold, I am against the prophets, says Yahweh, who use their tongues, and say, He says. 32.Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says Yahweh, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their vain boasting: yet I didn't send them, nor commanded them; neither do they profit this people at all, says Yahweh. 33.When this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask you, saying, What is the burden of Yahweh? Then you shall tell them, What burden! I will cast you off, says Yahweh. 34.As for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, who shall say, The burden of Yahweh, I will even punish that man and his house. 35.You shall say everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his brother, What has Yahweh answered? and, What has Yahweh spoken? 36.You shall mention the burden of Yahweh no more: for every man's own word shall be his burden; for you have perverted the words of the living God, of Yahweh of Armies our God. 37.You shall say to the prophet, What has Yahweh answered you? and, What has Yahweh spoken? 38.But if you say, The burden of Yahweh; therefore thus says Yahweh: Because you say this word, The burden of Yahweh, and I have sent to you, saying, You shall not say, The burden of Yahweh; 39.therefore, behold, I will utterly forget you, and I will cast you off, and the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, away from my presence: 40.and I will bring an everlasting reproach on you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.

Romans 10

1.Brothers, my heart's desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved. 2.For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3.For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn't subject themselves to the righteousness of God. 4.For Christ is the fulfillment³⁷ of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. 5.For Moses writes about the righteousness of the law, "The one who does them will live by them."[38] 6.But the righteousness which is of faith says this, "Don't say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'[39] (that is, to bring Christ down); 7.or, 'Who will descend into the abyss?'[40] (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.)" 8.But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart;"[41] that is, the word of faith, which we preach: 9.that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10.For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11.For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed."[42]

12.For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him. 13.For, "Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved."[43] 14.How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? 15.And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Good News of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!"[44]

16.But they didn't all listen to the glad news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?"[45] 17.So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18.But I say, didn't they hear? Yes, most certainly, "Their sound went out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."[46]

19.But I ask, didn't Israel know? First Moses says, "I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation, with a nation void of understanding I will make you angry."[47]

20.Isaiah is very bold, and says, "I was found by those who didn't seek me. I was revealed to those who didn't ask for me."[48]

21.But as to Israel he says, "All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people."[49]

Romans 11

1.I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2.God didn't reject his people, which he foreknew. Or don't you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel: 3."Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life."[50] 4.But how does God answer him? "I have reserved for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal."[51] 5.Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6.And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.

7.What then? That which Israel seeks for, that he didn't obtain, but the chosen ones obtained it, and the rest were hardened. 8.According as it is written, "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day."[52] 9.David says, "Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution to them. 10.Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see. Bow down their back always."[53]

11.I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. 12.Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness? 13.For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry; 14.if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them. 15.For if the rejection of them is the reconciling of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead? 16.If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches. 17.But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree; 18.don't boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. 19.You will say then, "Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in." 20.True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don't be conceited, but fear; 21.for if God didn't spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22.See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. 23.They also, if they don't continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24.For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? 25.For I don't desire you to be ignorant, brothers,⁵⁴ of this mystery, so that you won't be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, 26.and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, "There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. 27.This is my covenant to them, when I will take away their sins."[55]

28.Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake. 29.For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30.For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, 31.even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy. 32.For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all. 33.Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! 34."For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"[56] 35."Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?"[57]

36.For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.