Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Daily Readings for July 31
Click the arrow above to the left of the audio strip to start audio for today
2Samuel 17
1.Moreover Ahithophel said to Absalom, "Let me now choose twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David tonight. 2.I will come on him while he is weary and exhausted, and will make him afraid. All the people who are with him shall flee. I will strike the king only; 3.and I will bring back all the people to you. The man whom you seek is as if all returned. All the people shall be in peace."
4.The saying pleased Absalom well, and all the elders of Israel. 5.Then Absalom said, "Now call Hushai the Archite also, and let us hear likewise what he says."
6.When Hushai had come to Absalom, Absalom spoke to him, saying, "Ahithophel has spoken like this. Shall we do what he says? If not, speak up."
7.Hushai said to Absalom, "The counsel that Ahithophel has given this time is not good." 8.Hushai said moreover, "You know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are fierce in their minds, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. Your father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people. 9.Behold, he is now hidden in some pit, or in some other place. It will happen, when some of them have fallen at the first, that whoever hears it will say, 'There is a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom!' 10.Even he who is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, will utterly melt; for all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and those who are with him are valiant men. 11.But I counsel that all Israel be gathered together to you, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that you go to battle in your own person. 12.So shall we come on him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light on him as the dew falls on the ground; and of him and of all the men who are with him we will not leave so much as one. 13.Moreover, if he be gone into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there isn't one small stone found there."
14.Absalom and all the men of Israel said, "The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel." For Yahweh had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Yahweh might bring evil on Absalom. 15.Then Hushai said to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, "Ahithophel counseled Absalom and the elders of Israel that way; and I have counseled this way. 16.Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying, 'Don't lodge this night at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people who are with him.'"
17.Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying by En Rogel; and a female servant used to go and tell them; and they went and told king David. For they might not be seen to come into the city. 18.But a boy saw them, and told Absalom. Then they both went away quickly, and came to the house of a man in Bahurim, who had a well in his court; and they went down there. 19.The woman took and spread the covering over the well's mouth, and spread out bruised grain on it; and nothing was known. 20.Absalom's servants came to the woman to the house; and they said, "Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?"
The woman said to them, "They have gone over the brook of water."
When they had sought and could not find them, they returned to Jerusalem. 21.It happened, after they had departed, that they came up out of the well, and went and told king David; and they said to David, "Arise and pass quickly over the water; for thus has Ahithophel counseled against you."
22.Then David arose, and all the people who were with him, and they passed over the Jordan. By the morning light there lacked not one of them who had not gone over the Jordan. 23.When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey, and arose, and went home, to his city, and set his house in order, and hanged himself; and he died, and was buried in the tomb of his father. 24.Then David came to Mahanaim. Absalom passed over the Jordan, he and all the men of Israel with him. 25.Absalom set Amasa over the army instead of Joab. Now Amasa was the son of a man, whose name was Ithra the Israelite, who went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister to Zeruiah, Joab's mother. 26.Israel and Absalom encamped in the land of Gilead. 27.It happened, when David had come to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of Nahash of Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodebar, and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim, 28.brought beds, basins, earthen vessels, wheat, barley, meal, parched grain, beans, lentils, roasted grain, 29.honey, butter, sheep, and cheese of the herd, for David, and for the people who were with him, to eat: for they said, "The people are hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness."
Jeremiah 21
1.The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when king Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, saying, 2.Please inquire of Yahweh for us; for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us: perhaps Yahweh will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from us. 3.Then Jeremiah said to them, You shall tell Zedekiah: 4.Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you, without the walls; and I will gather them into the midst of this city. 5.I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation. 6.I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal: they shall die of a great pestilence. 7.Afterward, says Yahweh, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life: and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy. 8.To this people you shall say, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. 9.He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out, and passes over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be to him for a prey. 10.For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good, says Yahweh: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. 11.Touching the house of the king of Judah, hear the word of Yahweh: 12.House of David, thus says Yahweh, Execute justice in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. 13.Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, [and] of the rock of the plain, says Yahweh; you that say, Who shall come down against us? or who shall enter into our habitations? 14.I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahweh; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is around her.
Romans 7
1.Or don't you know, brothers17 (for I speak to men who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives? 2.For the woman that has a husband is bound by law to the husband while he lives, but if the husband dies, she is discharged from the law of the husband. 3.So then if, while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she would be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she is joined to another man. 4.Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit to God. 5.For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring forth fruit to death. 6.But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
7.What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn't have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn't have known coveting, unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."[18] 8.But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. 9.I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10.The commandment, which was for life, this I found to be for death; 11.for sin, finding occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. 12.Therefore the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good.
13.Did then that which is good become death to me? May it never be! But sin, that it might be shown to be sin, by working death to me through that which is good; that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful. 14.For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. 15.For I don't know what I am doing. For I don't practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. 16.But if what I don't desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. 17.So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 18.For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don't find it doing that which is good. 19.For the good which I desire, I don't do; but the evil which I don't desire, that I practice. 20.But if what I don't desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 21.I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present. 22.For I delight in God's law after the inward man, 23.but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. 24.What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? 25.I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God's law, but with the flesh, the sin's law.
Romans 8
1.There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.19 2.For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. 3.For what the law couldn't do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; 4.that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5.For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6.For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; 7.because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God's law, neither indeed can it be. 8.Those who are in the flesh can't please God. 9.But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. 10.If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11.But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. 12.So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13.For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14.For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. 15.For you didn't receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, "Abba20! Father!"
16.The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; 17.and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. 18.For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us. 19.For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20.For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21.that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. 22.For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. 23.Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body. 24.For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees? 25.But if we hope for that which we don't see, we wait for it with patience. 26.In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we don't know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which can't be uttered. 27.He who searches the hearts knows what is on the Spirit's mind, because he makes intercession for the saints according to God.
28.We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. 29.For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.21 30.Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.
31.What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32.He who didn't spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things? 33.Who could bring a charge against God's chosen ones? It is God who justifies. 34.Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
35.Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36.Even as it is written, "For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter."[22] 37.No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38.For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39.nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.