Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Daily Readings for October 5
Click the arrow above to the left of the audio strip to start audio for today
1Chronicles 20
1.It happened, at the time of the return of the year, at the time when kings go out, that Joab led forth the army, and wasted the country of the children of Ammon, and came and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem. Joab struck Rabbah, and overthrew it. 2.David took the crown of their king from off his head, and found it to weigh a talent of gold, and there were precious stones in it; and it was set on David's head: and he brought forth the spoil of the city, exceeding much. 3.He brought forth the people who were therein, and cut them with saws, and with iron picks, and with axes. David did so to all the cities of the children of Ammon. David and all the people returned to Jerusalem. 4.It happened after this, that there arose war at Gezer with the Philistines: then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Sippai, of the sons of the giant; and they were subdued. 5.There was again war with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. 6.There was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were twenty-four, six on each hand, and six on each foot; and he also was born to the giant. 7.When he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea David's brother killed him. 8.These were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.
1Chronicles 21
1.Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. 2.David said to Joab and to the princes of the people, "Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring me word, that I may know the sum of them."
3.Joab said, "May Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are. But, my lord the king, aren't they all my lord's servants? Why does my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?"
4.Nevertheless the king's word prevailed against Joab. Therefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem. 5.Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to David. All those of Israel were one million one hundred thousand men who drew sword: and in Judah were four hundred seventy thousand men who drew sword. 6.But he didn't count Levi and Benjamin among them; for the king's word was abominable to Joab. 7.God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel. 8.David said to God, "I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing. But now, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly."
9.Yahweh spoke to Gad, David's seer, saying, 10."Go and speak to David, saying, 'Thus says Yahweh, "I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you."'"
11.So Gad came to David, and said to him, "Thus says Yahweh, 'Take your choice: 12.either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and the angel of Yahweh destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.'"
13.David said to Gad, "I am in distress. Let me fall, I pray, into the hand of Yahweh; for his mercies are very great. Let me not fall into the hand of man."
14.So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel; and seventy thousand men of Israel fell. 15.God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was about to destroy, Yahweh saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, "It is enough; now stay your hand." The angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 16.David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of Yahweh standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.
Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. 17.David said to God, "Isn't it I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father's house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued."
18.Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to tell David that David should go up, and raise an altar to Yahweh in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19.David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh. 20.Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21.As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. 22.Then David said to Ornan, "Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build thereon an altar to Yahweh. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people."
23.Ornan said to David, "Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Behold, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering. I give it all."
24.King David said to Ornan, "No; but I will most certainly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is yours for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt offering without cost."
25.So David gave to Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place. 26.David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering. 27.Yahweh commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into its sheath. 28.At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29.For the tabernacle of Yahweh, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 30.But David couldn't go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Yahweh.
Ezekiel 31
1.It happened in the eleventh year, in the third [month], in the first [day] of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, 2.Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude: Whom are you like in your greatness? 3.Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, and of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs. 4.The waters nourished it, the deep made it to grow: its rivers ran all around its plantation; and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field. 5.Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and its boughs were multiplied, and its branches became long by reason of many waters, when it shot [them] forth. 6.All the birds of the sky made their nests in its boughs; and under its branches all the animals of the field brought forth their young; and all great nations lived under its shadow. 7.Thus was it beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its root was by many waters. 8.The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it; the fir trees were not like its boughs, and the plane trees were not as its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty. 9.I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it. 10.Therefore thus said the Lord Yahweh: Because you are exalted in stature, and he has set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; 11.I will even deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations; he shall surely deal with him; I have driven him out for his wickedness. 12.Strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: on the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land; and all the peoples of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him. 13.On his ruin all the birds of the sky shall dwell, and all the animals of the field shall be on his branches; 14.to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, neither set their top among the thick boughs, nor that their mighty ones stand up on their height, [even] all who drink water: for they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with those who go down to the pit. 15.Thus says the Lord Yahweh: In the day when he went down to Sheol8 I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers; and the great waters were stayed; and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. 16.I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol9 with those who descend into the pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth. 17.They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, [that] lived under his shadow in the midst of the nations. 18.To whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth: you shall lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, says the Lord Yahweh.
Ephesians 1
1.Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2.Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3.Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ; 4.even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without blemish before him in love; 5.having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire, 6.to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely bestowed favor on us in the Beloved, 7.in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8.which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9.making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him 10.to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him; 11.in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his will; 12.to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ: 13.in whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation--in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14.who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory. 15.For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which you have toward all the saints, 16.don't cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, 17.that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; 18.having the eyes of your hearts1 enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19.and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might 20.which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21.far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. 22.He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the assembly, 23.which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Ephesians 2
1.You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, 2.in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience; 3.among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4.But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, 5.even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6.and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7.that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; 8.for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9.not of works, that no one would boast. 10.For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
11.Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called "uncircumcision" by that which is called "circumcision," (in the flesh, made by hands); 12.that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13.But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ. 14.For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, 15.having abolished in the flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace; 16.and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby. 17.He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near. 18.For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 19.So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, 20.being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone; 21.in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord; 22.in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.