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Daily Readings for May 15
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Deuteronomy 32
1.Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth. 2.My doctrine shall drop as the rain. My speech shall condense as the dew, as the small rain on the tender grass, as the showers on the herb. 3.For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh. Ascribe greatness to our God! 4.The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice: a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he. 5.They have dealt corruptly with him. They are not his children, because of their defect. They are a perverse and crooked generation. 6.Do you thus requite Yahweh, foolish people and unwise? Isn't he your father who has bought you? He has made you, and established you. 7.Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you. 8.When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. 9.For Yahweh's portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. 10.He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. 11.As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers. 12.Yahweh alone led him. There was no foreign god with him. 13.He made him ride on the high places of the earth. He ate the increase of the field. He caused him to suck honey out of the rock, oil out of the flinty rock; 14.Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat. Of the blood of the grape you drank wine. 15.But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. 16.They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations. 17.They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn't know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn't dread. 18.Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth. 19.Yahweh saw and abhorred, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. 20.He said, "I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness. 21.They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. 22.For a fire is kindled in my anger, Burns to the lowest Sheol8, Devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
23."I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them. 24.They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust. 25.Outside the sword shall bereave, and in the rooms, terror; on both young man and virgin, The nursing infant with the gray-haired man. 26.I said, I would scatter them afar. I would make their memory to cease from among men; 27.were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should judge wrongly, lest they should say, 'Our hand is exalted, Yahweh has not done all this.'"
28.For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them. 29.Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! 30.How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had delivered them up? 31.For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. 32.For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter. 33.Their wine is the poison of serpents, The cruel venom of asps.
34."Isn't this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures? 35.Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slides; for the day of their calamity is at hand. The things that are to come on them shall make haste."
36.For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, There is none remaining, shut up or left at large. 37.He will say, "Where are their gods, The rock in which they took refuge; 38.Which ate the fat of their sacrifices, And drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you! Let them be your protection.
39."See now that I, even I, am he, There is no god with me. I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand. 40.For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live forever, 41.if I whet my glittering sword, My hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my adversaries, and will recompense those who hate me. 42.I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy."
43.Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will render vengeance to his adversaries, And will make expiation for his land, for his people.
44.Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun. 45.Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel; 46.He said to them, "Set your heart to all the words which I testify to you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. 47.For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it."
48.Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day, saying, 49."Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession; 50.and die on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people: 51.because you trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you didn't sanctify me in the midst of the children of Israel. 52.For you shall see the land before you; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel."
Isaiah 5
1.Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. 2.He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in its midst, and also cut out a winepress therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3."Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. 4.What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes? 5.Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall of it, and it will be trampled down. 6.I will lay it a wasteland. It won't be pruned nor hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it." 7.For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress. 8.Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land! 9.In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: "Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied. 10.For ten acres4 of vineyard shall yield one bath,5 and a homer6 of seed shall yield an ephah.7"
11.Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them! 12.The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don't respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they considered the operation of his hands. 13.Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst. 14.Therefore Sheol8 has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it. 15.So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled; 16.but Yahweh of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness. 17.Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.
18.Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope; 19.Who say, "Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!" 20.Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21.Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! 22.Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink; 23.who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent! 24.Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25.Therefore Yahweh's anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them, and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out. 26.He will lift up a banner to the nations from far, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly. 27.None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: 28.whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses' hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. 29.Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver. 30.They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.
Colossians 2
1.For I desire to have you know how greatly I struggle for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; 2.that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and gaining all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, 3.in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. 4.Now this I say that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of speech. 5.For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. 6.As therefore you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, walk in him, 7.rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, even as you were taught, abounding in it in thanksgiving. 8.Be careful that you don't let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ. 9.For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, 10.and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power; 11.in whom you were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; 12.having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13.You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14.wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us; and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; 15.having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
16.Let no one therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, 17.which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ's. 18.Let no one rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19.and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God's growth. 20.If you died with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to ordinances, 21."Don't handle, nor taste, nor touch" 22.(all of which perish with use), according to the precepts and doctrines of men? 23.Which things indeed appear like wisdom in self-imposed worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but aren't of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.