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Daily Readings for December 3
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Job 3
1.After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth. 2.Job answered: 3."Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, 'There is a boy conceived.' 4.Let that day be darkness. Don't let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it. 5.Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes black the day terrify it. 6.As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice among the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months. 7.Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein. 8.Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan. 9.Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning, 10.because it didn't shut up the doors of my mother's womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.
11."Why didn't I die from the womb? Why didn't I give up the spirit when my mother bore me? 12.Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse? 13.For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest, 14.with kings and counselors of the earth, who built up waste places for themselves; 15.or with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver: 16.or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light. 17.There the wicked cease from troubling. There the weary are at rest. 18.There the prisoners are at ease together. They don't hear the voice of the taskmaster. 19.The small and the great are there. The servant is free from his master.
20."Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul, 21.Who long for death, but it doesn't come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 22.who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave? 23.Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? 24.For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water. 25.For the thing which I fear comes on me, That which I am afraid of comes to me. 26.I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither have I rest; but trouble comes."
Job 4
1.Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered, 2."If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking? 3.Behold, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands. 4.Your words have supported him who was falling, You have made firm the feeble knees. 5.But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled. 6.Isn't your piety your confidence? Isn't the integrity of your ways your hope?
7."Remember, now, whoever perished, being innocent? Or where were the upright cut off? 8.According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same. 9.By the breath of God they perish. By the blast of his anger are they consumed. 10.The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken. 11.The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.
12."Now a thing was secretly brought to me. My ear received a whisper of it. 13.In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, 14.fear came on me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. 15.Then a spirit passed before my face. The hair of my flesh stood up. 16.It stood still, but I couldn't discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes. Silence, then I heard a voice, saying, 17.'Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? 18.Behold, he puts no trust in his servants. He charges his angels with error. 19.How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth! 20.Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it. 21.Isn't their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.'
Jonah 4
1.But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2.He prayed to Yahweh, and said, "Please, Yahweh, wasn't this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and you relent of doing harm. 3.Therefore now, Yahweh, take, I beg you, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live."
4.Yahweh said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
5.Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth, and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would become of the city. 6.Yahweh God prepared a vine, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine. 7.But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine, so that it withered. 8.It happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah's head, so that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
9.God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?"
He said, "I am right to be angry, even to death."
10.Yahweh said, "You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. 11.Shouldn't I be concerned for Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can't discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?"
Hebrews 10
1.For the law, having a shadow of the good to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near. 2.Or else wouldn't they have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having been once cleansed, would have had no more consciousness of sins? 3.But in those sacrifices there is a yearly reminder of sins. 4.For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. 5.Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, "Sacrifice and offering you didn't desire, but you prepared a body for me; 6.You had no pleasure in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. 7.Then I said, 'Behold, I have come (in the scroll of the book it is written of me) to do your will, O God.'"30
8.Previously saying, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you didn't desire, neither had pleasure in them" (those which are offered according to the law), 9.then he has said, "Behold, I have come to do your will." He takes away the first, that he may establish the second, 10.by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11.Every priest indeed stands day by day serving and often offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, 12.but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; 13.from that time waiting until his enemies are made the footstool of his feet. 14.For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. 15.The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, 16."This is the covenant that I will make with them: 'After those days,' says the Lord, 'I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;'"31
then he says, 17."I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more."32
18.Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. 19.Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20.by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; 21.and having a great priest over the house of God, 22.let's draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water, 23.let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering; for he who promised is faithful.
24.Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good works, 25.not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as you see the Day approaching. 26.For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice for sins, 27.but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries. 28.A man who disregards Moses' law dies without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses. 29.How much worse punishment, do you think, will he be judged worthy of, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30.For we know him who said, "Vengeance belongs to me," says the Lord, "I will repay."33 Again, "The Lord will judge his people."34 31.It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 32.But remember the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great struggle with sufferings; 33.partly, being exposed to both reproaches and oppressions; and partly, becoming partakers with those who were treated so. 34.For you both had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an enduring one in the heavens. 35.Therefore don't throw away your boldness, which has a great reward. 36.For you need endurance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise. 37."In a very little while, he who comes will come, and will not wait. 38.But the righteous will live by faith. If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him."35
39.But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the saving of the soul.