Daily Bible GNT June 19 Scroll

A Lamp under a Bowl
(Luke 8.16-18)

Mark 4²¹Jesus continued, "Does anyone ever bring in a lamp and put it under a bowl or under the bed? Isn't it put on the lampstand? ²²Whatever is hidden away will be brought out into the open, and whatever is covered up will be uncovered. ²³Listen, then, if you have ears!"

²⁴He also said to them, "Pay attention to what you hear! The same rules you use to judge others will be used by God to judge you--but with even greater severity. ²⁵Those who have something will be given more, and those who have nothing will have taken away from them even the little they have."

The Parable of the Growing Seed

²⁶Jesus went on to say, "The Kingdom of God is like this. A man scatters seed in his field. ²⁷He sleeps at night, is up and about during the day, and all the while the seeds are sprouting and growing. Yet he does not know how it happens. ²⁸The soil itself makes the plants grow and bear fruit; first the tender stalk appears, then the head, and finally the head full of grain. ²⁹When the grain is ripe, the man starts cutting it with his sickle, because harvest time has come.

The Parable of the Mustard Seed
(Matthew 13.31, 32, 34; Luke 13.18, 19)

³⁰"What shall we say the Kingdom of God is like?" asked Jesus. "What parable shall we use to explain it? ³¹It is like this. A man takes a mustard seed, the smallest seed in the world, and plants it in the ground. ³²After a while it grows up and becomes the biggest of all plants. It puts out such large branches that the birds come and make their nests in its shade."

³³Jesus preached his message to the people, using many other parables like these; he told them as much as they could understand. ³⁴He would not speak to them without using parables, but when he was alone with his disciples, he would explain everything to them.

Jesus Calms a Storm
(Matthew 8.23-27; Luke 8.22-25)

³⁵On the evening of that same day Jesus said to his disciples, "Let us go across to the other side of the lake." ³⁶So they left the crowd; the disciples got into the boat in which Jesus was already sitting, and they took him with them. Other boats were there too. ³⁷Suddenly a strong wind blew up, and the waves began to spill over into the boat, so that it was about to fill with water. ³⁸Jesus was in the back of the boat, sleeping with his head on a pillow. The disciples woke him up and said, "Teacher, don't you care that we are about to die?"

³⁹Jesus stood up and commanded the wind, "Be quiet!" and he said to the waves, "Be still!" The wind died down, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Why are you frightened? Do you still have no faith?"

⁴¹But they were terribly afraid and began to say to one another, "Who is this man? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"

David and Bathsheba

2 Samuel 11 The following spring, at the time of the year when kings usually go to war, David sent out Joab with his officers and the Israelite army; they defeated the Ammonites and besieged the city of Rabbah. But David himself stayed in Jerusalem.

²One day, late in the afternoon, David got up from his nap and went to the palace roof. As he walked around up there, he saw a woman taking a bath in her house. She was very beautiful. ³So he sent a messenger to find out who she was, and learned that she was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. ⁴David sent messengers to get her; they brought her to him and he made love to her. (She had just finished her monthly ritual of purification.) Then she went back home. ⁵Afterward she discovered that she was pregnant and sent a message to David to tell him.

⁶David then sent a message to Joab: "Send me Uriah the Hittite." So Joab sent him to David. ⁷When Uriah arrived, David asked him if Joab and the troops were well, and how the fighting was going. ⁸Then he said to Uriah, "Go on home and rest a while." Uriah left, and David had a present sent to his home. ⁹But Uriah did not go home; instead he slept at the palace gate with the king's guards. ¹⁰When David heard that Uriah had not gone home, he asked him, "You have just returned after a long absence; why didn't you go home?"

¹¹Uriah answered, "The men of Israel and Judah are away in battle, and the Covenant Box is with them; my commander Joab and his officers are camping out in the open. How could I go home, eat and drink, and sleep with my wife? By all that's sacred, I swear that I could never do such a thing!"

¹²So David said, "Then stay here the rest of the day, and tomorrow I'll send you back." So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. ¹³David invited him to supper and got him drunk. But again that night Uriah did not go home; instead he slept on his blanket in the palace guardroom.

¹⁴The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah. ¹⁵He wrote: "Put Uriah in the front line, where the fighting is heaviest, then retreat and let him be killed." ¹⁶So while Joab was besieging the city, he sent Uriah to a place where he knew the enemy was strong. ¹⁷The enemy troops came out of the city and fought Joab's forces; some of David's officers were killed, and so was Uriah.

¹⁸Then Joab sent a report to David telling him about the battle, ¹⁹and he instructed the messenger, "After you have told the king all about the battle, ²⁰he may get angry and ask you, 'Why did you go so near the city to fight them? Didn't you realize that they would shoot arrows from the walls? ²¹Don't you remember how Abimelech son of Gideon was killed? It was at Thebez, where a woman threw a millstone down from the wall and killed him. Why, then, did you go so near the wall?' If the king asks you this, tell him, 'Your officer Uriah was also killed.'"

²²So the messenger went to David and told him what Joab had commanded him to say. ²³He said, "Our enemies were stronger than we were and came out of the city to fight us in the open, but we drove them back to the city gate. ²⁴Then they shot arrows at us from the wall, and some of Your Majesty's officers were killed; your officer Uriah was also killed."

²⁵David said to the messenger, "Encourage Joab and tell him not to be upset, since you never can tell who will die in battle. Tell him to launch a stronger attack on the city and capture it."

²⁶When Bathsheba heard that her husband had been killed, she mourned for him. ²⁷When the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to the palace; she became his wife and bore him a son. But the LORD was not pleased with what David had done.

Nathan's Message and David's Repentance

2 Samuel 12 The LORD sent the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan went to him and said, "There were two men who lived in the same town; one was rich and the other poor. ²The rich man had many cattle and sheep, ³while the poor man had only one lamb, which he had bought. He took care of it, and it grew up in his home with his children. He would feed it some of his own food, let it drink from his cup, and hold it in his lap. The lamb was like a daughter to him. ⁴One day a visitor arrived at the rich man's home. The rich man didn't want to kill one of his own animals to fix a meal for him; instead, he took the poor man's lamb and prepared a meal for his guest."

⁵David became very angry at the rich man and said, "I swear by the living LORD that the man who did this ought to die! ⁶For having done such a cruel thing, he must pay back four times as much as he took."

⁷"You are that man," Nathan said to David. "And this is what the LORD God of Israel says: 'I made you king of Israel and rescued you from Saul. ⁸I gave you his kingdom and his wives; I made you king over Israel and Judah. If this had not been enough, I would have given you twice as much. ⁹Why, then, have you disobeyed my commands? Why did you do this evil thing? You had Uriah killed in battle; you let the Ammonites kill him, and then you took his wife! ¹⁰Now, in every generation some of your descendants will die a violent death because you have disobeyed me and have taken Uriah's wife. ¹¹I swear to you that I will cause someone from your own family to bring trouble on you. You will see it when I take your wives from you and give them to another man; and he will have intercourse with them in broad daylight. ¹²You sinned in secret, but I will make this happen in broad daylight for all Israel to see.'"

¹³"I have sinned against the LORD," David said.

Nathan replied, "The LORD forgives you; you will not die. ¹⁴But because you have shown such contempt for the LORD in doing this, your child will die." ¹⁵Then Nathan went home.

David's Son Dies

The LORD caused the child that Uriah's wife had borne to David to become very sick. ¹⁶David prayed to God that the child would get well. He refused to eat anything, and every night he went into his room and spent the night lying on the floor. ¹⁷His court officials went to him and tried to make him get up, but he refused and would not eat anything with them. ¹⁸A week later the child died, and David's officials were afraid to tell him the news. They said, "While the child was living, David wouldn't answer us when we spoke to him. How can we tell him that his child is dead? He might do himself some harm!"

¹⁹When David noticed them whispering to each other, he realized that the child had died. So he asked them, "Is the child dead?"

"Yes, he is," they answered.

²⁰David got up from the floor, took a bath, combed his hair, and changed his clothes. Then he went and worshiped in the house of the LORD. When he returned to the palace, he asked for food and ate it as soon as it was served. ²¹"We don't understand this," his officials said to him. "While the child was alive, you wept for him and would not eat; but as soon as he died, you got up and ate!"

²²"Yes," David answered, "I did fast and weep while he was still alive. I thought that the LORD might be merciful to me and not let the child die. ²³But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Could I bring the child back to life? I will some day go to where he is, but he can never come back to me."

Solomon Is Born

²⁴Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba. He had intercourse with her, and she bore a son, whom David named Solomon. The LORD loved the boy ²⁵and commanded the prophet Nathan to name the boy Jedidiah, because the LORD loved him.

David Captures Rabbah
(1 Chronicles 20.1-3)

²⁶Meanwhile Joab continued his campaign against Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon, and was about to capture it. ²⁷He sent messengers to David to report: "I have attacked Rabbah and have captured its water supply. ²⁸Now gather the rest of your forces, attack the city and take it yourself. I don't want to get the credit for capturing it." ²⁹So David gathered his forces, went to Rabbah, attacked it, and conquered it. ³⁰From the head of the idol of the Ammonite god Molech David took a gold crown which weighed about seventy-five pounds and had a jewel in it. David took the jewel and put it in his own crown. He also took a large amount of loot from the city ³¹and put its people to work with saws, iron hoes, and iron axes, and forced them to work at making bricks. He did the same to the people of all the other towns of Ammon. Then he and his men returned to Jerusalem.

Daniel in the Pit of Lions

Daniel 6 Darius decided to appoint a hundred and twenty governors to hold office throughout his empire. ²In addition, he chose Daniel and two others to supervise the governors and to look after the king's interests. ³Daniel soon showed that he could do better work than the other supervisors or the governors. Because he was so outstanding, the king considered putting him in charge of the whole empire. ⁴Then the other supervisors and the governors tried to find something wrong with the way Daniel administered the empire, but they couldn't, because Daniel was reliable and did not do anything wrong or dishonest. ⁵They said to each other, "We are not going to find anything of which to accuse Daniel unless it is something in connection with his religion."

⁶So they went to see the king and said, "King Darius, may Your Majesty live forever! ⁷All of us who administer your empire--the supervisors, the governors, the lieutenant governors, and the other officials--have agreed that Your Majesty should issue an order and enforce it strictly. Give orders that for thirty days no one be permitted to request anything from any god or from any human being except from Your Majesty. Anyone who violates this order is to be thrown into a pit filled with lions. ⁸So let Your Majesty issue this order and sign it, and it will be in force, a law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed." ⁹And so King Darius signed the order. ¹⁰When Daniel learned that the order had been signed, he went home. In an upstairs room of his house there were windows that faced toward Jerusalem. There, just as he had always done, he knelt down at the open windows and prayed to God three times a day.

¹¹When Daniel's enemies observed him praying to God, ¹²all of them went together to the king to accuse Daniel. They said, "Your Majesty, you signed an order that for the next thirty days anyone who requested anything from any god or from any human being except you, would be thrown into a pit filled with lions."

The king replied, "Yes, that is a strict order, a law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed."

¹³Then they said to the king, "Daniel, one of the exiles from Judah, does not respect Your Majesty or obey the order you issued. He prays regularly three times a day."

¹⁴When the king heard this, he was upset and did his best to find some way to rescue Daniel. He kept trying until sunset. ¹⁵Then Daniel's enemies came back to the king and said to him, "Your Majesty knows that according to the laws of the Medes and Persians no order which the king issues can be changed."

¹⁶So the king gave orders for Daniel to be taken and thrown into the pit filled with lions. He said to Daniel, "May your God, whom you serve so loyally, rescue you." ¹⁷A stone was put over the mouth of the pit, and the king placed his own royal seal and the seal of his noblemen on the stone, so that no one could rescue Daniel. ¹⁸Then the king returned to the palace and spent a sleepless night, without food or any form of entertainment.

¹⁹At dawn the king got up and hurried to the pit. ²⁰When he got there, he called out anxiously, "Daniel, servant of the living God! Was the God you serve so loyally able to save you from the lions?"

²¹Daniel answered, "May Your Majesty live forever! ²²God sent his angel to shut the mouths of the lions so that they would not hurt me. He did this because he knew that I was innocent and because I have not wronged you, Your Majesty."

²³The king was overjoyed and gave orders for Daniel to be pulled up out of the pit. So they pulled him up and saw that he had not been hurt at all, for he trusted God. ²⁴Then the king gave orders to arrest all those who had accused Daniel, and he had them thrown, together with their wives and children, into the pit filled with lions. Before they even reached the bottom of the pit, the lions pounced on them and broke all their bones.

²⁵Then King Darius wrote to the people of all nations, races, and languages on earth:

"Greetings! ²⁶I command that throughout my empire everyone should fear and respect Daniel's God.

"He is a living God,

and he will rule forever.

His kingdom will never be destroyed,

and his power will never come to an end.

²⁷He saves and rescues;

he performs wonders and miracles

in heaven and on earth.

He saved Daniel from being killed by the lions."

²⁸Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

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.