Bible Reading
July 8
The World English Bible
July
8
2
Kings 10-12
2Ki
10:1 Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. Jehu wrote letters, and
sent to Samaria, to the rulers of Jezreel, even the elders, and to
those who brought up the sons of
Ahab, saying,
2Ki
10:2 Now as soon as this letter comes to you, seeing your master's
sons are with you, and there are with you chariots and horses, a
fortified city also, and armor.
2Ki
10:3 Select the best and fittest of your master's sons, set him on
his father's throne, and fight for your master's house.
2Ki
10:4 But they were exceedingly afraid, and said, Behold, the two
kings didn't stand before him: how then shall we stand?
2Ki
10:5 He who was over the household, and he who was over the city,
the elders also, and those who brought up the
children, sent to Jehu, saying, We are
your servants, and will do all that you shall bid us; we will not
make any man king: you do that which is good in your eyes.
2Ki
10:6 Then he wrote a letter the second time to them, saying, If you
be on my side, and if you will listen to my voice, take the heads of
the men your master's sons, and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow
this time. Now the king's sons, being seventy persons, were with the
great men of the city, who brought them up.
2Ki
10:7 It happened, when the letter came to them, that they took the
king's sons, and killed them, even seventy persons, and put their
heads in baskets, and sent them to him to Jezreel.
2Ki
10:8 There came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought
the heads of the king's sons. He said, Lay them in two heaps at the
entrance of the gate until the morning.
2Ki
10:9 It happened in the morning, that he went out, and stood, and
said to all the people, You are righteous: behold, I conspired
against my master, and killed him; but who struck all these?
2Ki
10:10 Know now that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the
word of Yahweh, which Yahweh spoke concerning the house of Ahab: for
Yahweh has done that which he spoke by his servant Elijah.
2Ki
10:11 So Jehu struck all that remained of the house of Ahab in
Jezreel, and all his great men, and his familiar friends, and his
priests, until he left him none remaining.
2Ki
10:12 He arose and departed, and went to Samaria. As he was at the
shearing house of the shepherds in the way,
2Ki
10:13 Jehu met with the brothers of Ahaziah king of Judah, and said,
Who are you? They answered, We are the brothers of Ahaziah: and we go
down to Greet the children of the king and the children of the queen.
2Ki
10:14 He said, Take them alive. They took them alive, and killed
them at the pit of the shearing house, even two and forty men;
neither left he any of them.
2Ki
10:15 When he was departed there, he lighted on Jehonadab the son of
Rechab coming to meet him; and he greeted him, and said to him, Is
your heart right, as my heart is with your heart? Jehonadab answered,
It is. If it be, give me your hand. He gave him his hand; and he took
him up to him into the chariot.
2Ki
10:16 He said, Come with me, and see my zeal for Yahweh. So they
made him ride in his chariot.
2Ki
10:17 When he came to Samaria, he struck all who remained to Ahab in
Samaria, until he had destroyed him, according to the word of Yahweh,
which he spoke to Elijah.
2Ki
10:18 Jehu gathered all the people together, and said to them, Ahab
served Baal a little; but Jehu will serve him much.
2Ki
10:19 Now therefore call to me all the prophets of Baal, all his
worshippers, and all his priests; let none be wanting: for I have a
great sacrifice to do
to Baal; whoever shall be wanting, he shall not live. But Jehu did it
in subtlety, to the intent that he might destroy the worshippers of
Baal.
2Ki
10:20 Jehu said, Sanctify a solemn assembly for Baal. They
proclaimed it.
2Ki
10:21 Jehu sent through all Israel: and all the worshippers of Baal
came, so that there was not a man left that didn't come. They came
into the house of Baal; and the house of Baal was filled from one end
to another.
2Ki
10:22 He said to him who was over the vestry, Bring forth vestments
for all the worshippers of Baal. He brought them forth vestments.
2Ki
10:23 Jehu went, and Jehonadab the son of Rechab, into the house of
Baal; and he said to the worshippers of Baal, Search, and look that
there are here with you none of the servants of Yahweh, but the
worshippers of Baal only.
2Ki
10:24 They went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings. Now Jehu
had appointed him eighty men outside, and said, If any of the men
whom I bring into your hands escape, he
who lets him go, his life shall be for
the life of him.
2Ki
10:25 It happened, as soon as he had made an end of offering the
burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go
in, and kill them; let none come forth. They struck them with the
edge of the sword; and the guard and the captains cast them out, and
went to the city of the house of Baal.
2Ki
10:26 They brought forth the pillars that were in the house of Baal,
and burned them.
2Ki
10:27 They broke down the pillar of Baal, and broke down the house
of Baal, and made it a latrine, to this day.
2Ki
10:28 Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel.
2Ki
10:29 However from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, with which
he made Israel to sin, Jehu didn't depart from after them, to
wit, the golden calves that were in
Bethel, and that were in Dan.
2Ki
10:30 Yahweh said to Jehu, Because you have done well in executing
that which is right in my eyes, and
have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart,
your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.
2Ki
10:31 But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of Yahweh, the God of
Israel, with all his heart: he didn't depart from the sins of
Jeroboam, with which he made Israel to sin.
2Ki
10:32 In those days Yahweh began to cut off from Israel: and Hazael
struck them in all the borders of Israel;
2Ki
10:33 from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites,
and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the
valley of the Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan.
2Ki
10:34 Now the rest of the acts of Jehu, and all that he did, and all
his might, aren't they written in the book of the chronicles of the
kings of Israel?
2Ki
10:35 Jehu slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria.
Jehoahaz his son reigned in his place.
2Ki
10:36 The time that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was
twenty-eight years.
2Ki
11:1 Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was
dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.
2Ki
11:2 But Jehosheba, the daughter of king Joram, sister of Ahaziah,
took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the
king's sons who were slain, even him and his nurse, and
put them in the bedchamber; and they hid
him from Athaliah, so that he was not slain;
2Ki
11:3 He was with her hid in the house of Yahweh six years. Athaliah
reigned over the land.
2Ki
11:4 In the seventh year Jehoiada sent and fetched the captains over
hundreds of the Carites and of the guard, and brought them to him
into the house of Yahweh; and he made a covenant with them, and took
an oath of them in the house of Yahweh, and showed them the king's
son.
2Ki
11:5 He commanded them, saying, This is the thing that you shall do:
a third part of you, who come in on the Sabbath, shall be keepers of
the watch of the king's house;
2Ki
11:6 A third part shall be at the gate Sur; and a third part at the
gate behind the guard: so you shall keep the watch of the house, and
be a barrier.
2Ki
11:7 The two companies of you, even all who go forth on the Sabbath,
shall keep the watch of the house of Yahweh about the king.
2Ki
11:8 You shall surround the king, every man with his weapons in his
hand; and he who comes within the ranks, let him be slain: and be
with the king when he goes out, and when he comes in.
2Ki
11:9 The captains over hundreds did according to all that Jehoiada
the priest commanded; and they took every man his men, those who were
to come in on the Sabbath, with those who were to go out on the
Sabbath, and came to Jehoiada the priest.
2Ki
11:10 The priest delivered to the captains over hundreds the spears
and shields that had been king David's, which were in the house of
Yahweh.
2Ki
11:11 The guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, from
the right side of the house to the left side of the house, along by
the altar and the house, around the king.
2Ki
11:12 Then he brought out the king's son, and put the crown on him,
and gave him
the testimony; and they made him king, and anointed him; and they
clapped their hands, and said, Long
live the king.
2Ki
11:13 When Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and
of the people, she came to the people
into the house of Yahweh:
2Ki
11:14 and she looked, and behold, the king stood by the pillar, as
the manner was, and the captains and the trumpets by the king; and
all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew trumpets. Then Athaliah
tore her clothes, and cried, Treason! treason!
2Ki
11:15 Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of hundreds who
were set over the army, and said to them, Have her forth between the
ranks; and him who follows her kill with the sword. For the priest
said, Don't let her be slain in the house of Yahweh.
2Ki
11:16 So they made way for her; and she went by the way of the
horses' entry to the king's house: and there was she slain.
2Ki
11:17 Jehoiada made a covenant between Yahweh and the king and the
people, that they should be Yahweh's people; between the king also
and the people.
2Ki
11:18 All the people of the land went to the house of Baal, and
broke it down; his altars and his images broke they in pieces
thoroughly, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.
The priest appointed officers over the house of Yahweh.
2Ki
11:19 He took the captains over hundreds, and the Carites, and the
guard, and all the people of the land; and they brought down the king
from the house of Yahweh, and came by the way of the gate of the
guard to the king's house. He sat on the throne of the kings.
2Ki
11:20 So all the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was
quiet. Athaliah they had slain with the sword at the king's house.
2Ki
11:21 Jehoash was seven years old when he began to reign.
2Ki
12:1 In the seventh year of Jehu began Jehoash to reign; and he
reigned forty years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Zibiah of
Beersheba.
2Ki
12:2 Jehoash did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh all his
days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.
2Ki
12:3 However the high places were not taken away; the people still
sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places.
2Ki
12:4 Jehoash said to the priests, All the money of the holy things
that is brought into the house of Yahweh, in current money, the money
of the persons for whom each man is rated, and all the money that it
comes into any man's heart to bring into the house of Yahweh,
2Ki
12:5 let the priests take it to them, every man from his
acquaintance; and they shall repair the breaches of the house,
wherever any breach shall be found.
2Ki
12:6 But it was so, that in the three and twentieth year of king
Jehoash the priests had not repaired the breaches of the house.
2Ki
12:7 Then king Jehoash called for Jehoiada the priest, and for the
other
priests, and said to them, Why don't you repair the breaches of the
house? now therefore take no more
money from your acquaintance, but deliver it for the breaches of the
house.
2Ki
12:8 The priests consented that they should take no more
money from the people, neither repair the breaches of the house.
2Ki
12:9 But Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in its
lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into
the house of Yahweh: and the priests who kept the threshold put
therein all the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh.
2Ki
12:10 It was so, when they saw that there was much money in the
chest, that the king's scribe and the high priest came up, and they
put up in bags and counted the money that was found in the house of
Yahweh.
2Ki
12:11 They gave the money that was weighed out into the hands of
those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of Yahweh:
and they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders, who worked
on the house of Yahweh,
2Ki
12:12 and to the masons and the stone cutters, and for buying timber
and cut stone to repair the breaches of the house of Yahweh, and for
all that was laid out for the house to repair it.
2Ki
12:13 But there were not made for the house of Yahweh cups of
silver, snuffers, basins, trumpets, any vessels of gold, or vessels
of silver, of the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh;
2Ki
12:14 for they gave that to those who did the work, and repaired
therewith the house of Yahweh.
2Ki
12:15 Moreover they didn't demand an accounting from the men into
whose hand they delivered the money to give to those who did the
work; for they dealt faithfully.
2Ki
12:16 The money for the trespass offerings, and the money for the
sin offerings, was not brought into the house of Yahweh: it was the
priests'.
2Ki
12:17 Then Hazael king of Syria went up, and fought against Gath,
and took it; and Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem.
2Ki
12:18 Jehoash king of Judah took all the holy things that
Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, his fathers, kings of Judah, had
dedicated, and his own holy things, and all the gold that was found
in the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and of the king's house, and
sent it to Hazael king of Syria: and he went away from Jerusalem.
2Ki
12:19 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, aren't
they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
2Ki
12:20 His servants arose, and made a conspiracy, and struck Joash at
the house of Millo, on the way
that goes down to Silla.
2Ki
12:21 For Jozacar the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad the son of
Shomer, his servants, struck him, and he died; and they buried him
with his fathers in the city of David: and Amaziah his son reigned in
his place.
Jul.
8, 9
Acts
7
Act
7:1 The high priest said, "Are these things so?"
Act
7:2 He said, "Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory
appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he
lived in Haran,
Act
7:3 and said to him, 'Get out of your land, and from your relatives,
and come into a land which I will show you.'
Act
7:4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and lived in
Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this
land, where you are now living.
Act
7:5 He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his
foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession,
and to his seed after him, when he still had no child.
Act
7:6 God spoke in this way: that his seed would live as aliens in a
strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four
hundred years.
Act
7:7 'I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,' said
God, 'and after that will they come out, and serve me in this place.'
Act
7:8 He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the
father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the
father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve
patriarchs.
Act
7:9 "The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold
him into Egypt. God was with him,
Act
7:10 and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him
favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He made him governor
over Egypt and all his house.
Act
7:11 Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and
great affliction. Our fathers found no food.
Act
7:12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out
our fathers the first time.
Act
7:13 On the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and
Joseph's race was revealed to Pharaoh.
Act
7:14 Joseph sent, and summoned Jacob, his father, and all his
relatives, seventy-five souls.
Act
7:15 Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, himself and our
fathers,
Act
7:16 and they were brought back to Shechem, and laid in the tomb
that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor
of Shechem.
Act
7:17 "But as the time of the promise came close which God had
sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
Act
7:18 until there arose a different king, who didn't know Joseph.
Act
7:19 The same took advantage of our race, and mistreated our
fathers, and forced them to throw out their babies, so that they
wouldn't stay alive.
Act
7:20 At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome. He
was nourished three months in his father's house.
Act
7:21 When he was thrown out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and
reared him as her own son.
Act
7:22 Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was
mighty in his words and works.
Act
7:23 But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to
visit his brothers, the children of Israel.
Act
7:24 Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged
him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian.
Act
7:25 He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand,
was giving them deliverance; but they didn't understand.
Act
7:26 "The day following, he appeared to them as they fought,
and urged them to be at peace again, saying, 'Sirs, you are brothers.
Why do you wrong one another?'
Act
7:27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, 'Who
made you a ruler and a judge over us?
Act
7:28 Do you want to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'
Act
7:29 Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of
Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
Act
7:30 "When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord
appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire
in a bush.
Act
7:31 When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. As he came close
to see, a voice of the Lord came to him,
Act
7:32 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' Moses trembled, and dared not look.
Act
7:33 The Lord said to him, 'Take your sandals off of your feet, for
the place where you stand is holy ground.
Act
7:34 I have surely seen the affliction of my people that is in
Egypt, and have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver
them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.'
Act
7:35 "This Moses, whom they refused, saying, 'Who made you a
ruler and a judge?'-God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer
by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
Act
7:36 This man led them out, having worked wonders and signs in
Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
Act
7:37 This is that Moses, who said to the children of Israel, 'The
Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your
brothers, like me.'
Act
7:38 This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the
angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who
received living oracles to give to us,
Act
7:39 to whom our fathers wouldn't be obedient, but rejected him, and
turned back in their hearts to Egypt,
Act
7:40 saying to Aaron, 'Make us gods that will go before us, for as
for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know
what has become of him.'
Act
7:41 They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the
idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.
Act
7:42 But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky,
as it is written in the book of the prophets, 'Did you offer to me
slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house
of Israel?
Act
7:43 You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, the star of your god
Rephan, the figures which you made to worship. I will carry you away
beyond Babylon.'
Act
7:44 "Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the
wilderness, even as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it
according to the pattern that he had seen;
Act
7:45 which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua
when they entered into the possession of the nations, whom God drove
out before the face of our fathers, to the days of David,
Act
7:46 who found favor in the sight of God, and asked to find a
habitation for the God of Jacob.
Act
7:47 But Solomon built him a house.
Act
7:48 However, the Most High doesn't dwell in temples made with
hands, as the prophet says,
Act
7:49 'heaven is my throne, and the earth a footstool for my feet.
What kind of house will you build me?' says the Lord; 'or what is the
place of my rest?
Act
7:50 Didn't my hand make all these things?'
Act
7:51 "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you
always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.
Act
7:52 Which of the prophets didn't your fathers persecute? They
killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom
you have now become betrayers and murderers.
Act
7:53 You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn't
keep it!"
Act
7:54 Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart,
and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
Act
7:55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly
into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the
right hand of God,
Act
7:56 and said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son
of Man standing at the right hand of God!"
Act
7:57 But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears,
and rushed at him with one accord.
Act
7:58 They threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses
placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Act
7:59 They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, "Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit!"
Act
7:60 He kneeled down, and cried wStudy Questionsith a loud voice,
"Lord, don't hold this sin against them!" When he had said
this, he fell asleep.
