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Daily Readings for March 18
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Leviticus 26
1."'You shall make for yourselves no idols, neither shall you raise up an engraved image or a pillar, neither shall you place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it: for I am Yahweh your God.
2."'You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.
3."'If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4.then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5.Your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6."'I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid; and I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7.You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8.Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
9."'I will have respect for you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you. 10.You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new. 11.I will set my tent among you: and my soul won't abhor you. 12.I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people. 13.I am Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves; and I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you go upright.
14."'But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments; 15.and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant; 16.I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. 17.I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.
18."'If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 19.I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass; 20.and your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won't yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21."'If you walk contrary to me, and won't listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. 22.I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number; and your roads will become desolate.
23."'If by these things you won't be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me; 24.then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. 25.I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; and you will be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26.When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27."'If you in spite of this won't listen to me, but walk contrary to me; 28.then I will walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins. 29.You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. 30.I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. 31.I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. 32.I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein will be astonished at it. 33.I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. 34.Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35.As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn't have in your sabbaths, when you lived on it.
36."'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues. 37.They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues: and you will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38.You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will eat you up. 39.Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.
40."'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me, 41.I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity; 42.then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. 43.The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44.Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God; 45.but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.'"
46.These are the statutes, ordinances and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
Psalm 137
1.By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 2.On the willows in its midst, we hung up our harps. 3.For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" 4.How can we sing Yahweh's song in a foreign land? 5.If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. 6.Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I don't remember you; if I don't prefer Jerusalem above my chief joy. 7.Remember, Yahweh, against the children of Edom, the day of Jerusalem; who said, "Raze it! Raze it even to its foundation!" 8.Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be happy who rewards you, as you have served us. 9.Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.
Psalm 138
1.I will give you thanks with my whole heart. Before the gods45, I will sing praises to you. 2.I will bow down toward your holy temple, and give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth; for you have exalted your Name and your Word above all. 3.In the day that I called, you answered me. You encouraged me with strength in my soul. 4.All the kings of the earth will give you thanks, Yahweh, for they have heard the words of your mouth. 5.Yes, they will sing of the ways of Yahweh; for great is Yahweh's glory. 6.For though Yahweh is high, yet he looks after the lowly; but the proud, he knows from afar. 7.Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies. Your right hand will save me. 8.Yahweh will fulfill that which concerns me; your loving kindness, Yahweh, endures forever. Don't forsake the works of your own hands.
Psalm 139
1.Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. 2.You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. 3.You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4.For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether. 5.You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. 6.This knowledge is beyond me. It's lofty. I can't attain it. 7.Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? 8.If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol46, behold, you are there! 9.If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea; 10.Even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me. 11.If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me; the light around me will be night;" 12.even the darkness doesn't hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you. 13.For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. 14.I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. 15.My frame wasn't hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. 16.Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them. 17.How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum! 18.If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you. 19.If only you, God, would kill the wicked. Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20.For they speak against you wickedly. Your enemies take your name in vain. 21.Yahweh, don't I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? 22.I hate them with perfect hatred. They have become my enemies. 23.Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. 24.See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
Luke 9
1.He called the twelve22 together, and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. 2.He sent them forth to preach the Kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. 3.He said to them, "Take nothing for your journey--neither staffs, nor wallet, nor bread, nor money; neither have two coats apiece. 4.Into whatever house you enter, stay there, and depart from there. 5.As many as don't receive you, when you depart from that city, shake off even the dust from your feet for a testimony against them."
6.They departed, and went throughout the villages, preaching the Good News, and healing everywhere. 7.Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him; and he was very perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, 8.and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the old prophets had risen again. 9.Herod said, "John I beheaded, but who is this, about whom I hear such things?" He sought to see him. 10.The apostles, when they had returned, told him what things they had done.
He took them, and withdrew apart to a deserted place of a city called Bethsaida. 11.But the multitudes, perceiving it, followed him. He welcomed them, and spoke to them of the Kingdom of God, and he cured those who needed healing. 12.The day began to wear away; and the twelve came, and said to him, "Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding villages and farms, and lodge, and get food, for we are here in a deserted place."
13.But he said to them, "You give them something to eat."
They said, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we should go and buy food for all these people." 14.For they were about five thousand men.
He said to his disciples, "Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each." 15.They did so, and made them all sit down. 16.He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to the sky, he blessed them, and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. 17.They ate, and were all filled. They gathered up twelve baskets of broken pieces that were left over.
18.It happened, as he was praying alone, that the disciples were with him, and he asked them, "Who do the multitudes say that I am?"
19.They answered, "'John the Baptizer,' but others say, 'Elijah,' and others, that one of the old prophets is risen again."
20.He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Peter answered, "The Christ of God."
21.But he warned them, and commanded them to tell this to no one, 22.saying, "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up."
23.He said to all, "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross,23 and follow me. 24.For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, the same will save it. 25.For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self? 26.For whoever will be ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed, when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels. 27.But I tell you the truth: There are some of those who stand here, who will in no way taste of death, until they see the Kingdom of God."
28.It happened about eight days after these sayings, that he took with him Peter, John, and James, and went up onto the mountain to pray. 29.As he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became white and dazzling. 30.Behold, two men were talking with him, who were Moses and Elijah, 31.who appeared in glory, and spoke of his departure,24 which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
32.Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they were fully awake, they saw his glory, and the two men who stood with him. 33.It happened, as they were parting from him, that Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let's make three tents: one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah," not knowing what he said.
34.While he said these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered into the cloud. 35.A voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!" 36.When the voice came, Jesus was found alone. They were silent, and told no one in those days any of the things which they had seen.
37.It happened on the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, that a great multitude met him. 38.Behold, a man from the crowd called out, saying, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39.Behold, a spirit takes him, he suddenly cries out, and it convulses him so that he foams, and it hardly departs from him, bruising him severely. 40.I begged your disciples to cast it out, and they couldn't."
41.Jesus answered, "Faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here."
42.While he was still coming, the demon threw him down and convulsed him violently. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43.They were all astonished at the majesty of God.
But while all were marveling at all the things which Jesus did, he said to his disciples, 44."Let these words sink into your ears, for the Son of Man will be delivered up into the hands of men." 45.But they didn't understand this saying. It was concealed from them, that they should not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
46.There arose an argument among them about which of them was the greatest. 47.Jesus, perceiving the reasoning of their hearts, took a little child, and set him by his side, 48.and said to them, "Whoever receives this little child in my name receives me. Whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For whoever is least among you all, this one will be great."
49.John answered, "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he doesn't follow with us."
50.Jesus said to him, "Don't forbid him, for he who is not against us is for us."
51.It came to pass, when the days were near that he should be taken up, he intently set his face to go to Jerusalem, 52.and sent messengers before his face. They went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, so as to prepare for him. 53.They didn't receive him, because he was traveling with his face set towards Jerusalem. 54.When his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from the sky, and destroy them, just as Elijah did?"
55.But he turned and rebuked them, "You don't know of what kind of spirit you are. 56.For the Son of Man didn't come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."
They went to another village. 57.As they went on the way, a certain man said to him, "I want to follow you wherever you go, Lord."
58.Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
59.He said to another, "Follow me!"
But he said, "Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father."
60.But Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but you go and announce the Kingdom of God."
61.Another also said, "I want to follow you, Lord, but first allow me to say good-bye to those who are at my house."
62.But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God."