October 13  

Daily Bible in a Year

Daily Old and New Testaments, Psalms, and Proverbs

  •   Jeremiah 22:1-23:20
    Jeremiah 22:1-23:20

    22 Thus says the Lord: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, 2 and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. 3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. 4 For if you will indeed obey this word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people. 5 But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.6 For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:
    “‘You are like Gilead to me,
         like the summit of Lebanon,
     yet surely I will make you a desert,
         an uninhabited city.[a]

    7 
    I will prepare destroyers against you,
         each with his weapons,
     and they shall cut down your choicest cedars
         and cast them into the fire.

    8 “‘And many nations will pass by this city, and every man will say to his neighbor, “Why has the Lord dealt thus with this great city?” 9 And they will answer, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them.”’”
    10 
    Weep not for him who is dead,
         nor grieve for him,
     but weep bitterly for him who goes away,
         for he shall return no more
         to see his native land.

    Message to the Sons of Josiah
    11 For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, and who went away from this place: “He shall return here no more, 12 but in the place where they have carried him captive, there shall he die, and he shall never see this land again.”
    13 
    “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
         and his upper rooms by injustice,
     who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing
         and does not give him his wages,

    14 
    who says, ‘I will build myself a great house
         with spacious upper rooms,’
     who cuts out windows for it,
         paneling it with cedar
         and painting it with vermilion.

    15 
    Do you think you are a king
         because you compete in cedar?
     Did not your father eat and drink
         and do justice and righteousness?
         Then it was well with him.

    16 
    He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
         then it was well.
     Is not this to know me?
         declares the Lord.

    17 
    But you have eyes and heart
         only for your dishonest gain,
     for shedding innocent blood,
         and for practicing oppression and violence.”

    18 Therefore thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:

    “They shall not lament for him, saying,
         ‘Ah, my brother!’ or ‘Ah, sister!’
     They shall not lament for him, saying,
         ‘Ah, lord!’ or ‘Ah, his majesty!’

    19 
    With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried,
         dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

    20 
    “Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,
         and lift up your voice in Bashan;
     cry out from Abarim,
         for all your lovers are destroyed.

    21 
    I spoke to you in your prosperity,
         but you said, ‘I will not listen.’
     This has been your way from your youth,
         that you have not obeyed my voice.

    22 
    The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds,
         and your lovers shall go into captivity;
     then you will be ashamed and confounded
         because of all your evil.

    23 
    O inhabitant of Lebanon,
         nested among the cedars,
     how you will be pitied when pangs come upon you,
         pain as of a woman in labor!”

    24 “As I live, declares the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off 25 and give you into the hand of those who seek your life, into the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. 27 But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.”
    28 
    Is this man Coniah a despised, broken pot,
         a vessel no one cares for?
     Why are he and his children hurled and cast
         into a land that they do not know?

    29 
    O land, land, land,
         hear the word of the Lord!

    30 
    Thus says the Lord:
     “Write this man down as childless,
         a man who shall not succeed in his days,
     for none of his offspring shall succeed
         in sitting on the throne of David
         and ruling again in Judah.”

    The Righteous Branch
    23 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. 2 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. 3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.
    5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
    7 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 8 but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he[b] had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

    Lying Prophets
    9 Concerning the prophets:

    My heart is broken within me;
         all my bones shake;
     I am like a drunken man,
         like a man overcome by wine,
     because of the Lord
         and because of his holy words.

    10 
    For the land is full of adulterers;
         because of the curse the land mourns,
         and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
     Their course is evil,
         and their might is not right.

    11 
    “Both prophet and priest are ungodly;
         even in my house I have found their evil,
     declares the Lord.

    12 
    Therefore their way shall be to them
         like slippery paths in the darkness,
         into which they shall be driven and fall,
     for I will bring disaster upon them
         in the year of their punishment,
     declares the Lord.

    13 
    In the prophets of Samaria
         I saw an unsavory thing:
     they prophesied by Baal
         and led my people Israel astray.

    14 
    But in the prophets of Jerusalem
         I have seen a horrible thing:
     they commit adultery and walk in lies;
         they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
         so that no one turns from his evil;
     all of them have become like Sodom to me,
         and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”

    15 
    Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets:
     “Behold, I will feed them with bitter food
         and give them poisoned water to drink,
     for from the prophets of Jerusalem
         ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

    16 Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. 17 They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”
    18 
    For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord
         to see and to hear his word,
         or who has paid attention to his word and listened?

    19 
    Behold, the storm of the Lord!
         Wrath has gone forth,
     a whirling tempest;
         it will burst upon the head of the wicked.

    20 
    The anger of the Lord will not turn back
         until he has executed and accomplished
         the intents of his heart.
     In the latter days you will understand it clearly.

    Footnotes:
    1. Jeremiah 22:6 Hebrew cities
    2. Jeremiah 23:8 Septuagint; Hebrew I
  •   2 Thessalonians 1
    2 Thessalonians 1

    Greeting
    1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
    To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
    2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Thanksgiving
    3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers,[a] as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

    The Judgment at Christ's Coming
    5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— 6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from[b] the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. 11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, 12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

    Footnotes:
    1. 2 Thessalonians 1:3 Or brothers and sisters. In New Testament usage, depending on the context, the plural Greek word adelphoi (translated “brothers”) may refer either to brothersor to brothers and sisters
    2. 2 Thessalonians 1:9 Or destruction that comes from
  •   Psalm 83
    Psalm 83

    O God, Do Not Keep Silence
    A Song. A Psalm of Asaph.
    83 
    O God, do not keep silence;
         do not hold your peace or be still, O God!

    2 
    For behold, your enemies make an uproar;
         those who hate you have raised their heads.

    3 
    They lay crafty plans against your people;
         they consult together against your treasured ones.

    4 
    They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;
         let the name of Israel be remembered no more!”

    5 
    For they conspire with one accord;
         against you they make a covenant—

    6 
    the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
         Moab and the Hagrites,

    7 
    Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
         Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;

    8 
    Asshur also has joined them;
         they are the strong arm of the children of Lot. Selah

    9 
    Do to them as you did to Midian,
         as to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon,

    10 
    who were destroyed at En-dor,
         who became dung for the ground.

    11 
    Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
         all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,

    12 
    who said, “Let us take possession for ourselves
         of the pastures of God.”

    13 
    O my God, make them like whirling dust,[a]
         like chaff before the wind.

    14 
    As fire consumes the forest,
         as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,

    15 
    so may you pursue them with your tempest
         and terrify them with your hurricane!

    16 
    Fill their faces with shame,
         that they may seek your name, O Lord.

    17 
    Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
         let them perish in disgrace,

    18 
    that they may know that you alone,
         whose name is the Lord,
         are the Most High over all the earth.

    Footnotes:
    1. Psalm 83:13 Or like a tumbleweed
  •   Proverbs 25:11-14

    Proverbs 25:11-14

    11 
    A word fitly spoken

        is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.

    12 
    Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold

        is a wise reprover to a listening ear.

    13 
    Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest

        is a faithful messenger to those who send him;

        he refreshes the soul of his masters.

    14 
    Like clouds and wind without rain

        is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give.


    English Standard Version (ESV)
    The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.