From Gary... Bible Reading December 2

Bible Reading   

December 2

The World English Bible

Dec. 2

Ezekiel 21-24

Eze 21:1 The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Eze 21:2 Son of man, set your face toward Jerusalem, and drop your word toward the sanctuaries, and prophesy against the land of Israel;

Eze 21:3 and tell the land of Israel, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I am against you, and will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked.

Eze 21:4 Seeing then that I will cut off from you the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:

Eze 21:5 and all flesh shall know that I, Yahweh, have drawn forth my sword out of its sheath; it shall not return any more.

Eze 21:6 Sigh therefore, you son of man; with the breaking of your thighs and with bitterness you will sigh before their eyes.

Eze 21:7 It shall be, when they tell you, Why do you sigh? that you shall say, Because of the news, for it comes; and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it comes, and it shall be done, says the Lord Yahweh.

Eze 21:8 The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Eze 21:9 Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says Yahweh: Say, A sword, a sword, it is sharpened, and also furbished;

Eze 21:10 it is sharpened that it may make a slaughter; it is furbished that it may be as lightning: shall we then make mirth? the rod of my son, it condemns every tree.

Eze 21:11 It is given to be furbished, that it may be handled: the sword, it is sharpened, yes, it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the killer.

Eze 21:12 Cry and wail, son of man; for it is on my people, it is on all the princes of Israel: they are delivered over to the sword with my people; strike therefore on your thigh.

Eze 21:13 For there is a trial; and what if even the rod that condemns shall be no more? says the Lord Yahweh.

Eze 21:14 You therefore, son of man, prophesy, and strike your hands together; and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the deadly wounded: it is the sword of the great one who is deadly wounded, which enters into their chambers.

Eze 21:15 I have set the threatening sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied: ah! it is made as lightning, it is pointed for slaughter.

Eze 21:16 Gather you together, go to the right, set yourself in array, go to the left, wherever your face is set.

Eze 21:17 I will also strike my hands together, and I will cause my wrath to rest: I, Yahweh, have spoken it.

Eze 21:18 The word of Yahweh came to me again, saying,

Eze 21:19 Also, you son of man, appoint two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come; they both shall come forth out of one land: and mark out a place, mark it out at the head of the way to the city.

Eze 21:20 You shall appoint a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and to Judah in Jerusalem the fortified.

Eze 21:21 For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he shook the arrows back and forth, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver.

Eze 21:22 In his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, to build forts.

Eze 21:23 It shall be to them as a false divination in their sight, who have sworn oaths to them; but he brings iniquity to memory, that they may be taken.

Eze 21:24 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are uncovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because you have come to memory, you shall be taken with the hand.

Eze 21:25 You, deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day is come, in the time of the iniquity of the end,

Eze 21:26 thus says the Lord Yahweh: Remove the turban, and take off the crown; this shall be no more the same; exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high.

Eze 21:27 I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: this also shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.

Eze 21:28 You, son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach; and say you, A sword, a sword is drawn, for the slaughter it is furbished, to cause it to devour, that it may be as lightning;

Eze 21:29 while they see for you false visions, while they divine lies to you, to lay you on the necks of the wicked who are deadly wounded, whose day is come in the time of the iniquity of the end.

Eze 21:30 Cause it to return into its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your birth, will I judge you.

Eze 21:31 I will pour out my indignation on you; I will blow on you with the fire of my wrath; and I will deliver you into the hand of brutish men, skillful to destroy.

Eze 21:32 You shall be for fuel to the fire; your blood shall be in the midst of the land; you shall be no more remembered: for I, Yahweh, have spoken it.

Eze 22:1 Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Eze 22:2 You, son of man, will you judge, will you judge the bloody city? then cause her to know all her abominations.

Eze 22:3 You shall say, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: A city that sheds blood in the midst of her, that her time may come, and that makes idols against herself to defile her!

Eze 22:4 You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed, and are defiled in your idols which you have made; and you have caused your days to draw near, and are come even to your years: therefore have I made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries.

Eze 22:5 Those who are near, and those who are far from you, shall mock you, you infamous one and full of tumult.

Eze 22:6 Behold, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood.

Eze 22:7 In you have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of you have they dealt by oppression with the foreigner; in you have they wronged the fatherless and the widow.

Eze 22:8 You have despised my holy things, and have profaned my Sabbaths.

Eze 22:9 Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood; and in you they have eaten on the mountains: in the midst of you they have committed lewdness.

Eze 22:10 In you have they uncovered their fathers' nakedness; in you have they humbled her who was unclean in her impurity.

Eze 22:11 One has committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another has lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in you has humbled his sister, his father's daughter.

Eze 22:12 In you have they taken bribes to shed blood; you have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me, says the Lord Yahweh.

Eze 22:13 Behold, therefore, I have struck my hand at your dishonest gain which you have made, and at your blood which has been in the midst of you.

Eze 22:14 Can your heart endure, or can your hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you? I, Yahweh, have spoken it, and will do it.

Eze 22:15 I will scatter you among the nations, and disperse you through the countries; and I will consume your filthiness out of you.

Eze 22:16 You shall be profaned in yourself, in the sight of the nations; and you shall know that I am Yahweh.

Eze 22:17 The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Eze 22:18 Son of man, the house of Israel is become dross to me: all of them are brass and tin and iron and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are the dross of silver.

Eze 22:19 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you are all become dross, therefore, behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.

Eze 22:20 As they gather silver and brass and iron and lead and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire on it, to melt it; so will I gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will lay you there, and melt you.

Eze 22:21 Yes, I will gather you, and blow on you with the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst.

Eze 22:22 As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so you will be melted in its midst; and you will know that I, Yahweh, have poured out my wrath on you.

Eze 22:23 The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Eze 22:24 Son of man, tell her, You are a land that is not cleansed, nor rained on in the day of indignation.

Eze 22:25 There is a conspiracy of her prophets in its midst, like a roaring lion ravening the prey: they have devoured souls; they take treasure and precious things; they have made her widows many in its midst.

Eze 22:26 Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

Eze 22:27 Her princes in its midst are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.

Eze 22:28 Her prophets have daubed for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, Thus says the Lord Yahweh, when Yahweh has not spoken.

Eze 22:29 The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery; yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

Eze 22:30 I sought for a man among them, who should build up the wall, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.

Eze 22:31 Therefore have I poured out my indignation on them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath: their own way have I brought on their heads, says the Lord Yahweh.

Eze 23:1 The word of Yahweh came again to me, saying,

Eze 23:2 Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother:

Eze 23:3 and they played the prostitute in Egypt; they played the prostitute in their youth; there were their breasts pressed, and there was handled the bosom of their virginity.

Eze 23:4 The names of them were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

Eze 23:5 Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors,

Eze 23:6 who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.

Eze 23:7 She bestowed her prostitution on them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.

Eze 23:8 Neither has she left her prostitution since the days of Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her.

Eze 23:9 Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted.

Eze 23:10 These uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters; and her they killed with the sword: and she became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her.

Eze 23:11 Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister.

Eze 23:12 She doted on the Assyrians, governors and rulers, her neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.

Eze 23:13 I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way.

Eze 23:14 She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,

Eze 23:15 girded with girdles on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them princes to look on, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth.

Eze 23:16 As soon as she saw them she doted on them, and sent messengers to them into Chaldea.

Eze 23:17 The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.

Eze 23:18 So she uncovered her prostitution, and uncovered her nakedness: then my soul was alienated from her, like as my soul was alienated from her sister.

Eze 23:19 Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt.

Eze 23:20 She doted on their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

Eze 23:21 Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the handling of your bosom by the Egyptians for the breasts of your youth.

Eze 23:22 Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will raise up your lovers against you, from whom your soul is alienated, and I will bring them against you on every side:

Eze 23:23 the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; desirable young men, governors and rulers all of them, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses.

Eze 23:24 They shall come against you with weapons, chariots, and wagons, and with a company of peoples; they shall set themselves against you with buckler and shield and helmet all around; and I will commit the judgment to them, and they shall judge you according to their judgments.

Eze 23:25 I will set my jealousy against you, and they shall deal with you in fury; they shall take away your nose and your ears; and your residue shall fall by the sword: they shall take your sons and your daughters; and your residue shall be devoured by the fire.

Eze 23:26 They shall also strip you of your clothes, and take away your beautiful jewels.

Eze 23:27 Thus will I make your lewdness to cease from you, and your prostitution brought from the land of Egypt; so that you shall not lift up your eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more.

Eze 23:28 For thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will deliver you into the hand of them whom you hate, into the hand of them from whom your soul is alienated;

Eze 23:29 and they shall deal with you in hatred, and shall take away all your labor, and shall leave you naked and bare; and the nakedness of your prostitution shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.

Eze 23:30 These things shall be done to you, because you have played the prostitute after the nations, and because you are polluted with their idols.

Eze 23:31 You have walked in the way of your sister; therefore will I give her cup into your hand.

Eze 23:32 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: You will drink of your sister's cup, which is deep and large; you will be ridiculed and held in derision; it contains much.

Eze 23:33 You shall be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of your sister Samaria.

Eze 23:34 You shall even drink it and drain it out, and you shall gnaw the broken pieces of it, and shall tear your breasts; for I have spoken it, says the Lord Yahweh.

Eze 23:35 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore bear you also your lewdness and your prostitution.

Eze 23:36 Yahweh said moreover to me: Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? then declare to them their abominations.

Eze 23:37 For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands; and with their idols have they committed adultery; and they have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through the fire to them to be devoured.

Eze 23:38 Moreover this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my Sabbaths.

Eze 23:39 For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and behold, thus have they done in the midst of my house.

Eze 23:40 Furthermore you have sent for men who come from far, to whom a messenger was sent, and behold, they came; for whom you did wash yourself, paint your eyes, and deck yourself with ornaments,

Eze 23:41 and sit on a stately bed, with a table prepared before it, whereupon you did set my incense and my oil.

Eze 23:42 The voice of a multitude being at ease was with her: and with men of the common sort were brought drunkards from the wilderness; and they put bracelets on the hands of them twain, and beautiful crowns on their heads.

Eze 23:43 Then said I of her who was old in adulteries, Now will they play the prostitute with her, and she with them.

Eze 23:44 They went in to her, as they go in to a prostitute: so went they in to Oholah and to Oholibah, the lewd women.

Eze 23:45 Righteous men, they shall judge them with the judgment of adulteresses, and with the judgment of women who shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

Eze 23:46 For thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will bring up a company against them, and will give them to be tossed back and forth and robbed.

Eze 23:47 The company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords; they shall kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.

Eze 23:48 Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.

Eze 23:49 They shall recompense your lewdness on you, and you shall bear the sins of your idols; and you shall know that I am the Lord Yahweh.

Eze 24:1 Again, in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Eze 24:2 Son of man, write you the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon drew close to Jerusalem this same day.

Eze 24:3 Utter a parable to the rebellious house, and tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh, Set on the caldron, set it on, and also pour water into it:

Eze 24:4 gather its pieces into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulder; fill it with the choice bones.

Eze 24:5 Take the choice of the flock, and also a pile of wood for the bones under the caldron; make it boil well; yes, let its bones be boiled in its midst.

Eze 24:6 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Woe to the bloody city, to the caldron whose rust is therein, and whose rust is not gone out of it! take out of it piece after piece; No lot is fallen on it.

Eze 24:7 For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it on the bare rock; she didn't pour it on the ground, to cover it with dust.

Eze 24:8 That it may cause wrath to come up to take vengeance, I have set her blood on the bare rock, that it should not be covered.

Eze 24:9 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Woe to the bloody city! I also will make the pile great.

Eze 24:10 Heap on the wood, make the fire hot, boil well the flesh, and make thick the broth, and let the bones be burned.

Eze 24:11 Then set it empty on its coals, that it may be hot, and its brass may burn, and that its filthiness may be molten in it, that its rust may be consumed.

Eze 24:12 She has wearied herself with toil; yet her great rust doesn't go forth out of her; her rust doesn't go forth by fire.

Eze 24:13 In your filthiness is lewdness: because I have cleansed you and you weren't cleansed, you shall not be cleansed from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my wrath toward you to rest.

Eze 24:14 I, Yahweh, have spoken it: it shall happen, and I will do it: I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to your ways, and according to your doings, shall they judge you, says the Lord Yahweh.

Eze 24:15 Also the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Eze 24:16 Son of man, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke: yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down.

Eze 24:17 Sigh, but not aloud, make no mourning for the dead; bind your headdress on you, and put your shoes on your feet, and don't cover your lips, and don't eat men's bread.

Eze 24:18 So I spoke to the people in the morning; and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.

Eze 24:19 The people said to me, Won't you tell us what these things are to us, that you do so?

Eze 24:20 Then I said to them, The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

Eze 24:21 Speak to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind shall fall by the sword.

Eze 24:22 You shall do as I have done: you shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.

Eze 24:23 Your tires shall be on your heads, and your shoes on your feet: you shall not mourn nor weep; but you shall pine away in your iniquities, and moan one toward another.

Eze 24:24 Thus shall Ezekiel be to you a sign; according to all that he has done you will do: when this comes, then you will know that I am the Lord Yahweh.

Eze 24:25 You, son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart, their sons and their daughters,

Eze 24:26 that in that day he who escapes shall come to you, to cause you to hear it with your ears?

Eze 24:27 In that day your mouth will be opened to him who has escaped, and you shall speak, and be no more mute: so you will be a sign to them; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.

 

Dec. 2

James 5

Jas 5:1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.

Jas 5:2 Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten.

Jas 5:3 Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.

Jas 5:4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.

Jas 5:5 You have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.

Jas 5:6 You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn't resist you.

Jas 5:7 Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain.

Jas 5:8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Jas 5:9 Don't grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won't be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door.

Jas 5:10 Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of patience, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

Jas 5:11 Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

Jas 5:12 But above all things, my brothers, don't swear, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath; but let your "yes" be "yes," and your "no," "no;" so that you don't fall into hypocrisy.

Jas 5:13 Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises.

Jas 5:14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,

Jas 5:15 and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Jas 5:16 Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.

Jas 5:17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn't rain on the earth for three years and six months.

Jas 5:18 He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.

Jas 5:19 Brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back,

Jas 5:20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins.