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.
