Daily Bible GNT April 09 Scroll

Acts 1 Dear Theophilus:

In my first book I wrote about all the things that Jesus did and taught from the time he began his work ²until the day he was taken up to heaven. Before he was taken up, he gave instructions by the power of the Holy Spirit to the men he had chosen as his apostles. ³For forty days after his death he appeared to them many times in ways that proved beyond doubt that he was alive. They saw him, and he talked with them about the Kingdom of God. ⁴And when they came together, he gave them this order: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift I told you about, the gift my Father promised. ⁵John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

Jesus Is Taken Up to Heaven

⁶When the apostles met together with Jesus, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time give the Kingdom back to Israel?"

⁷Jesus said to them, "The times and occasions are set by my Father's own authority, and it is not for you to know when they will be. ⁸But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." ⁹After saying this, he was taken up to heaven as they watched him, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

¹⁰They still had their eyes fixed on the sky as he went away, when two men dressed in white suddenly stood beside them ¹¹and said, "Galileans, why are you standing there looking up at the sky? This Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way that you saw him go to heaven."

Judas' Successor

¹²Then the apostles went back to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is about half a mile away from the city. ¹³They entered the city and went up to the room where they were staying: Peter, John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Patriot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴They gathered frequently to pray as a group, together with the women and with Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers.

¹⁵A few days later there was a meeting of the believers, about a hundred and twenty in all, and Peter stood up to speak. ¹⁶"My friends," he said, "the scripture had to come true in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, made a prediction about Judas, who was the guide for those who arrested Jesus. ¹⁷Judas was a member of our group, for he had been chosen to have a part in our work."

( ¹⁸ With the money that Judas got for his evil act he bought a field, where he fell to his death; he burst open and all his insides spilled out. ¹⁹All the people living in Jerusalem heard about it, and so in their own language they call that field Akeldama, which means "Field of Blood.")

²⁰"For it is written in the book of Psalms,

'May his house become empty;

may no one live in it.'
It is also written,

'May someone else take his place of service.'

^21-22"So then, someone must join us as a witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He must be one of the men who were in our group during the whole time that the Lord Jesus traveled about with us, beginning from the time John preached his message of baptism until the day Jesus was taken up from us to heaven."

²³So they proposed two men: Joseph, who was called Barsabbas (also known as Justus), and Matthias. ²⁴Then they prayed, "Lord, you know the thoughts of everyone, so show us which of these two you have chosen ²⁵to serve as an apostle in the place of Judas, who left to go to the place where he belongs." ²⁶Then they drew lots to choose between the two men, and the one chosen was Matthias, who was added to the group of eleven apostles.

The LORD's Greatness

Deuteronomy 11 "Love the LORD your God and always obey all his laws. ²Remember today what you have learned about the LORD through your experiences with him. It was you, not your children, who had these experiences. You saw the LORD's greatness, his power, his might, ³and his miracles. You saw what he did to the king of Egypt and to his entire country. ⁴You saw how the LORD completely wiped out the Egyptian army, along with their horses and chariots, by drowning them in the Red Sea when they were pursuing you. ⁵You know what the LORD did for you in the desert before you arrived here. ⁶You recall what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab of the tribe of Reuben. In the sight of everyone the earth opened up and swallowed them, along with their families, their tents, and all their servants and animals. ⁷Yes, you are the ones who have seen all these great things that the LORD has done.

The Blessings of the Promised Land

⁸"Obey everything that I have commanded you today. Then you will be able to cross the river and occupy the land that you are about to enter. ⁹And you will live a long time in the rich and fertile land that the LORD promised to give your ancestors and their descendants. ¹⁰The land that you are about to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, where you lived before. There, when you planted grain, you had to work hard to irrigate the fields; ¹¹but the land that you are about to enter is a land of mountains and valleys, a land watered by rain. ¹²The LORD your God takes care of this land and watches over it throughout the year.

¹³"So then, obey the commands that I have given you today; love the LORD your God and serve him with all your heart. ¹⁴If you do, he will send rain on your land when it is needed, in the autumn and in the spring, so that there will be grain, wine, and olive oil for you, ¹⁵and grass for your livestock. You will have all the food you want. ¹⁶Do not let yourselves be led away from the LORD to worship and serve other gods. ¹⁷If you do, the LORD will become angry with you. He will hold back the rain, and your ground will become too dry for crops to grow. Then you will soon die there, even though it is a good land that he is giving you.

¹⁸"Remember these commands and cherish them. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder. ¹⁹Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working. ²⁰Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates. ²¹Then you and your children will live a long time in the land that the LORD your God promised to give to your ancestors. You will live there as long as there is a sky above the earth.

²²"Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you: Love the LORD your God, do everything he commands, and be faithful to him. ²³Then he will drive out all those nations as you advance, and you will occupy the land belonging to nations greater and more powerful than you. ²⁴All the ground that you march over will be yours. Your territory will extend from the desert in the south to the Lebanon Mountains in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. ²⁵Wherever you go in that land, the LORD your God will make the people fear you, as he has promised, and no one will be able to stop you.

²⁶"Today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse-- ²⁷a blessing, if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; ²⁸but a curse, if you disobey these commands and turn away to worship other gods that you have never worshiped before. ²⁹When the LORD brings you into the land that you are going to occupy, you are to proclaim the blessing from Mount Gerizim and the curse from Mount Ebal. ( ³⁰These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the territory of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley. They are toward the west, not far from the sacred trees of Moreh near the town of Gilgal.) ³¹You are about to cross the Jordan River and occupy the land that the LORD your God is giving you. When you take it and settle there, ³²be sure to obey all the laws that I am giving you today.

The One Place for Worship

Deuteronomy 12 "Here are the laws that you are to obey as long as you live in the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Listen to them! ²In the land that you are taking, destroy all the places where the people worship their gods on high mountains, on hills, and under green trees. ³Tear down their altars and smash their sacred stone pillars to pieces. Burn their symbols of the goddess Asherah and chop down their idols, so that they will never again be worshiped at those places.

⁴"Do not worship the LORD your God in the way that these people worship their gods. ⁵Out of the territory of all your tribes the LORD will choose the one place where the people are to come into his presence and worship him. ⁶There you are to offer your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, the gifts that you promise to the LORD, your freewill offerings, and the first-born of your cattle and sheep. ⁷There, in the presence of the LORD your God, who has blessed you, you and your families will eat and enjoy the good things that you have worked for.

⁸"When that time comes, you must not do as you have been doing. Until now you have all been worshiping as you please, ⁹because you have not yet entered the land that the LORD your God is giving you, where you can live in peace. ¹⁰When you cross the Jordan River, the LORD will let you occupy the land and live there. He will keep you safe from all your enemies, and you will live in peace. ¹¹The LORD will choose a single place where he is to be worshiped, and there you must bring to him everything that I have commanded: your sacrifices that are to be burned and your other sacrifices, your tithes and your offerings, and those special gifts that you have promised to the LORD. ¹²Be joyful there in his presence, together with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns; remember that the Levites will have no land of their own. ¹³You are not to offer your sacrifices wherever you choose; ¹⁴you must offer them only in the one place that the LORD will choose in the territory of one of your tribes. Only there are you to offer your sacrifices that are to be burned and do all the other things that I have commanded you.

¹⁵"But you are free to kill and eat your animals wherever you live. You may eat as many as the LORD gives you. All of you, whether ritually clean or unclean, may eat them, just as you would eat the meat of deer or antelope. ¹⁶But you must not eat their blood; you must pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷Nothing that you offer to the LORD is to be eaten in the places where you live: neither the tithes of your grain, your wine, or your olive oil, nor the first-born of your cattle and sheep, the gifts that you promise to the LORD, your freewill offerings, or any other offerings. ¹⁸You and your children, together with your servants and the Levites who live in your towns, are to eat these offerings only in the presence of the LORD your God, in the one place of worship chosen by the LORD your God. And you are to be happy there over everything that you have done. ¹⁹Be sure, also, not to neglect the Levites, as long as you live in your land.

²⁰"When the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised, you may eat meat whenever you want to. ²¹If the one place of worship is too far away, then, whenever you wish, you may kill any of the cattle or sheep that the LORD has given you, and you may eat the meat at home, as I have told you. ²²Anyone, ritually clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as he would eat the meat of deer or antelope. ²³Only do not eat meat with blood still in it, for the life is in the blood, and you must not eat the life with the meat. ²⁴Do not use the blood for food; instead, pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵If you obey this command, the LORD will be pleased, and all will go well for you and your descendants. ²⁶Take to the one place of worship your offerings and the gifts that you have promised the LORD. ²⁷Offer there the sacrifices which are to be completely burned on the LORD's altar. Also offer those sacrifices in which you eat the meat and pour the blood out on the altar. ²⁸Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you, and all will go well for you and your descendants forever, because you will be doing what is right and what pleases the LORD your God.

Warning against Idolatry

²⁹"The LORD your God will destroy the nations as you invade their land, and you will occupy it and settle there. ³⁰After the LORD destroys those nations, make sure that you don't follow their religious practices, because that would be fatal. Don't try to find out how they worship their gods, so that you can worship in the same way. ³¹Do not worship the LORD your God in the way they worship their gods, for in the worship of their gods they do all the disgusting things that the LORD hates. They even sacrifice their children in the fires on their altars.

³²"Do everything that I have commanded you; do not add anything to it or take anything from it.

Job 9

Job

^1-2Yes, I've heard all that before.

But how can a human being win a case against God?

³How can anyone argue with him?

He can ask a thousand questions

that no one could ever answer.

⁴God is so wise and powerful;

no one can stand up against him.

⁵Without warning he moves mountains

and in anger he destroys them.

⁶God sends earthquakes and shakes the ground;

he rocks the pillars that support the earth.

⁷He can keep the sun from rising,

and the stars from shining at night.

⁸No one helped God spread out the heavens

or trample the sea monster's back.

⁹God hung the stars in the sky--the Dipper,

Orion, the Pleiades, and the stars of the south.

¹⁰We cannot understand the great things he does,

and to his miracles there is no end.

¹¹God passes by, but I cannot see him.

¹²He takes what he wants, and no one can stop him;

no one dares ask him, "What are you doing?"

¹³God's anger is constant. He crushed his enemies

who helped Rahab, the sea monster, oppose him.

¹⁴So how can I find words to answer God?

¹⁵Though I am innocent, all I can do

is beg for mercy from God my judge.

¹⁶Yet even then, if he lets me speak,

I can't believe he would listen to me.

¹⁷He sends storms to batter and bruise me

without any reason at all.

¹⁸He won't let me catch my breath;

he has filled my life with bitterness.

¹⁹Should I try force? Try force on God?

Should I take him to court? Could anyone make him go?

²⁰I am innocent and faithful, but my words sound guilty,

and everything I say seems to condemn me.
^21-22I am innocent, but I no longer care.

I am sick of living. Nothing matters;

innocent or guilty, God will destroy us.

²³When an innocent person suddenly dies,

God laughs.

²⁴God gave the world to the wicked.

He made all the judges blind.

And if God didn't do it, who did?

²⁵My days race by, not one of them good.

²⁶My life passes like the swiftest boat,

as fast as an eagle swooping down on a rabbit.
^27-28If I smile and try to forget my pain,

all my suffering comes back to haunt me;

I know that God does hold me guilty.

²⁹Since I am held guilty, why should I bother?

³⁰

No soap can wash away my sins.

³¹God throws me into a pit with filth,

and even my clothes are ashamed of me.

³²If God were human, I could answer him;

we could go to court to decide our quarrel.

³³But there is no one to step between us--

no one to judge both God and me.

³⁴Stop punishing me, God!

Keep your terrors away!

³⁵I am not afraid. I am going to talk

because I know my own heart.

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.