Daily Bible GNT January 08 Scroll

Jesus Sends Out the Twelve Disciples
(Matthew 10.5-15; Mark 6.7-13)

Luke 9 Jesus called the twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases. ²Then he sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick, ³after saying to them, "Take nothing with you for the trip: no walking stick, no beggar's bag, no food, no money, not even an extra shirt. ⁴Wherever you are welcomed, stay in the same house until you leave that town; ⁵wherever people don't welcome you, leave that town and shake the dust off your feet as a warning to them."

⁶The disciples left and traveled through all the villages, preaching the Good News and healing people everywhere.

Herod's Confusion
(Matthew 14.1-12; Mark 6.14-29)

⁷When Herod, the ruler of Galilee, heard about all the things that were happening, he was very confused, because some people were saying that John the Baptist had come back to life. ⁸Others were saying that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had come back to life. ⁹Herod said, "I had John's head cut off; but who is this man I hear these things about?" And he kept trying to see Jesus.

Jesus Feeds Five Thousand
(Matthew 14.13-21; Mark 6.30-44; John 6.1-14)

¹⁰The apostles came back and told Jesus everything they had done. He took them with him, and they went off by themselves to a town named Bethsaida. ¹¹When the crowds heard about it, they followed him. He welcomed them, spoke to them about the Kingdom of God, and healed those who needed it.

¹²When the sun was beginning to set, the twelve disciples came to him and said, "Send the people away so that they can go to the villages and farms around here and find food and lodging, because this is a lonely place."

¹³But Jesus said to them, "You yourselves give them something to eat."

They answered, "All we have are five loaves and two fish. Do you want us to go and buy food for this whole crowd?" ¹⁴(There were about five thousand men there.)

Jesus said to his disciples, "Make the people sit down in groups of about fifty each."

¹⁵After the disciples had done so, ¹⁶Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up to heaven, thanked God for them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. ¹⁷They all ate and had enough, and the disciples took up twelve baskets of what was left over.

Peter's Declaration about Jesus
(Matthew 16.13-19; Mark 8.27-29)

¹⁸One day when Jesus was praying alone, the disciples came to him. "Who do the crowds say I am?" he asked them.

¹⁹"Some say that you are John the Baptist," they answered. "Others say that you are Elijah, while others say that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life."

²⁰"What about you?" he asked them. "Who do you say I am?"

Peter answered, "You are God's Messiah."

Jesus Speaks about His Suffering and Death
(Matthew 16.20-28; Mark 8.30--9.1)

²¹Then Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell this to anyone. ²²He also told them, "The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death, but three days later he will be raised to life."

²³And he said to them all, "If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me. ²⁴For if you want to save your own life, you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it. ²⁵Will you gain anything if you win the whole world but are yourself lost or defeated? Of course not! ²⁶If you are ashamed of me and of my teaching, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷I assure you that there are some here who will not die until they have seen the Kingdom of God."

God's Covenant with Abram

Genesis 15 After this, Abram had a vision and heard the LORD say to him, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I will shield you from danger and give you a great reward."

²But Abram answered, "Sovereign LORD, what good will your reward do me, since I have no children? My only heir is Eliezer of Damascus. ³You have given me no children, and one of my slaves will inherit my property."

⁴Then he heard the LORD speaking to him again: "This slave Eliezer will not inherit your property; your own son will be your heir." ⁵The LORD took him outside and said, "Look at the sky and try to count the stars; you will have as many descendants as that."

⁶Abram put his trust in the LORD, and because of this the LORD was pleased with him and accepted him.

⁷Then the LORD said to him, "I am the LORD, who led you out of Ur in Babylonia, to give you this land as your own."

⁸But Abram asked, "Sovereign LORD, how can I know that it will be mine?"

⁹He answered, "Bring me a cow, a goat, and a ram, each of them three years old, and a dove and a pigeon." ¹⁰Abram brought the animals to God, cut them in half, and placed the halves opposite each other in two rows; but he did not cut up the birds. ¹¹Vultures came down on the bodies, but Abram drove them off.

¹²When the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and fear and terror came over him. ¹³The LORD said to him, "Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land; they will be slaves there and will be treated cruelly for four hundred years. ¹⁴But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and when they leave that foreign land, they will take great wealth with them. ¹⁵You yourself will live to a ripe old age, die in peace, and be buried. ¹⁶It will be four generations before your descendants come back here, because I will not drive out the Amorites until they become so wicked that they must be punished."

¹⁷When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch suddenly appeared and passed between the pieces of the animals. ¹⁸Then and there the LORD made a covenant with Abram. He said, "I promise to give your descendants all this land from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River, ¹⁹including the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."

God's Glory and Human Dignity

Psalm 8 O LORD, our Lord,

your greatness is seen in all the world!

Your praise reaches up to the heavens;

it is sung by children and babies.

You are safe and secure from all your enemies;

you stop anyone who opposes you.

³When I look at the sky, which you have made,

at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places--

⁴what are human beings, that you think of them;

mere mortals, that you care for them?

⁵Yet you made them inferior only to yourself;

you crowned them with glory and honor.

⁶You appointed them rulers over everything you made;

you placed them over all creation:

⁷

sheep and cattle, and the wild animals too;

⁸

the birds and the fish

and the creatures in the seas.

⁹O LORD, our Lord,

your greatness is seen in all the world!

This reading is from The Holy Bible, Today's English Version, Second Edition copyright © American Bible Society, 1992;
Old Testament copyright © American Bible Society, 1976, 1992; New Testament © American Bible Society, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1992.

These daily Bible readings from the Good News Translation (GNT), formerly the Today's English Version (TEV), are published by BibleNetUSA. The web site and BibleCard® designs are by iCreative. All BibleCard® images are copyrighted by iCreative. All rights reserved.