Daily Bible GNT November 06 Scroll

A Loyal Soldier of Christ Jesus

2 Timothy 2 As for you, my son, be strong through the grace that is ours in union with Christ Jesus. ²Take the teachings that you heard me proclaim in the presence of many witnesses, and entrust them to reliable people, who will be able to teach others also.

³Take your part in suffering, as a loyal soldier of Christ Jesus. ⁴A soldier on active duty wants to please his commanding officer and so does not get mixed up in the affairs of civilian life. ⁵An athlete who runs in a race cannot win the prize unless he obeys the rules. ⁶The farmer who has done the hard work should have the first share of the harvest. ⁷Think about what I am saying, because the Lord will enable you to understand it all.

⁸Remember Jesus Christ, who was raised from death, who was a descendant of David, as is taught in the Good News I preach. ⁹Because I preach the Good News, I suffer and I am even chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not in chains, ¹⁰and so I endure everything for the sake of God's chosen people, in order that they too may obtain the salvation that comes through Christ Jesus and brings eternal glory. ¹¹This is a true saying:

"If we have died with him,

we shall also live with him.

¹²If we continue to endure,

we shall also rule with him.

If we deny him,

he also will deny us.

¹³If we are not faithful,

he remains faithful,

because he cannot be false to himself."

An Approved Worker

¹⁴Remind your people of this, and give them a solemn warning in God's presence not to fight over words. It does no good, but only ruins the people who listen. ¹⁵Do your best to win full approval in God's sight, as a worker who is not ashamed of his work, one who correctly teaches the message of God's truth. ¹⁶Keep away from profane and foolish discussions, which only drive people farther away from God. ¹⁷Such teaching is like an open sore that eats away the flesh. Two men who have taught such things are Hymenaeus and Philetus. ¹⁸They have left the way of truth and are upsetting the faith of some believers by saying that our resurrection has already taken place. ¹⁹But the solid foundation that God has laid cannot be shaken; and on it are written these words: "The Lord knows those who are his" and "Those who say that they belong to the Lord must turn away from wrongdoing."

²⁰In a large house there are dishes and bowls of all kinds: some are made of silver and gold, others of wood and clay; some are for special occasions, others for ordinary use. ²¹Those who make themselves clean from all those evil things, will be used for special purposes, because they are dedicated and useful to their Master, ready to be used for every good deed. ²²Avoid the passions of youth, and strive for righteousness, faith, love, and peace, together with those who with a pure heart call out to the Lord for help. ²³But keep away from foolish and ignorant arguments; you know that they end up in quarrels. ²⁴As the Lord's servant, you must not quarrel. You must be kind toward all, a good and patient teacher, ²⁵who is gentle as you correct your opponents, for it may be that God will give them the opportunity to repent and come to know the truth. ²⁶And then they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the Devil, who had caught them and made them obey his will.

Jeremiah Preaches in the Temple

Jeremiah 7 ^1-3The LORD sent me to the gate of the Temple where the people of Judah went in to worship. He told me to stand there and announce what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, had to say to them: "Change the way you are living and the things you are doing, and I will let you go on living here. ⁴Stop believing those deceitful words, 'We are safe! This is the LORD's Temple, this is the LORD's Temple, this is the LORD's Temple!'

⁵"Change the way you are living and stop doing the things you are doing. Be fair in your treatment of one another. ⁶Stop taking advantage of aliens, orphans, and widows. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop worshiping other gods, for that will destroy you. ⁷If you change, I will let you go on living here in the land which I gave your ancestors as a permanent possession.

⁸"Look, you put your trust in deceitful words. ⁹You steal, murder, commit adultery, tell lies under oath, offer sacrifices to Baal, and worship gods that you had not known before. ¹⁰You do these things I hate, and then you come and stand in my presence, in my own Temple, and say, 'We are safe!' ¹¹Do you think that my Temple is a hiding place for robbers? I have seen what you are doing. ¹²Go to Shiloh, the first place where I chose to be worshiped, and see what I did to it because of the sins of my people Israel. ¹³You have committed all these sins, and even though I spoke to you over and over again, you refused to listen. You would not answer when I called you. ¹⁴And so, what I did to Shiloh I will do to this Temple of mine, in which you trust. Here in this place that I gave to your ancestors and you, I will do the same thing that I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵I will drive you out of my sight as I drove out your relatives, the people of Israel. I, the LORD, have spoken."

The People's Disobedience

¹⁶The LORD said, "Jeremiah, do not pray for these people. Do not cry or pray on their behalf; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you. ¹⁷Don't you see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The children gather firewood, the men build fires, and the women mix dough to bake cakes for the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. They also pour out offerings of wine to other gods, in order to hurt me. ¹⁹But am I really the one they are hurting? No, they are hurting themselves and bringing shame on themselves. ²⁰And so I, the Sovereign LORD, will pour out my fierce anger on this Temple. I will pour it out on people and animals alike, and even on the trees and the crops. My anger will be like a fire that no one can put out.

²¹"My people, some sacrifices you burn completely on the altar, and some you are permitted to eat. But what I, the LORD, say is that you might as well eat them all. ²²I gave your ancestors no commands about burnt offerings or any other kinds of sacrifices when I brought them out of Egypt. ²³But I did command them to obey me, so that I would be their God and they would be my people. And I told them to live the way I had commanded them, so that things would go well for them. ²⁴But they did not obey or pay any attention. Instead, they did whatever their stubborn and evil hearts told them to do, and they became worse instead of better. ²⁵From the day that your ancestors came out of Egypt until this very day I have kept on sending to you my servants, the prophets. ²⁶Yet no one listened or paid any attention. Instead, you became more stubborn and rebellious than your ancestors.

²⁷"So, Jeremiah, you will speak all these words to my people, but they will not listen to you; you will call them, but they will not answer. ²⁸You will tell them that their nation does not obey me, the LORD their God, or learn from their punishment. Faithfulness is dead. No longer is it even talked about.

Sinful Deeds in Hinnom Valley

²⁹"Mourn, people of Jerusalem;

cut off your hair and throw it away.

Sing a funeral song on the hilltops,

because I, the LORD, am angry

and have rejected my people.

³⁰"The people of Judah have done an evil thing. They have placed their idols, which I hate, in my Temple and have defiled it. ³¹In Hinnom Valley they have built an altar called Topheth, so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters in the fire. I did not command them to do this--it did not even enter my mind. ³²And so, the time will come when it will no longer be called Topheth or Hinnom Valley, but Slaughter Valley. They will bury people there because there will be nowhere else to bury them. ³³The corpses will be food for the birds and wild animals, and there will be no one to scare them off. ³⁴The land will become a desert. In the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the happy sounds of wedding feasts.
Jeremiah 8 "At that time the bones of the kings and of the officials of Judah, as well as the bones of the priests, of the prophets, and of the other people who lived in Jerusalem, will be taken out of their graves. ²Instead of being gathered and buried, their bones will be like manure lying on the ground. They will be spread out before the sun, the moon, and the stars, which these people have loved and served, and which they have consulted and worshiped. ³And the people of this evil nation who survive, who live in the places where I have scattered them, will prefer to die rather than to go on living. I, the LORD Almighty, have spoken."

Sin and Punishment

⁴The LORD told me to say to his people, "When someone falls down, doesn't he get back up? If someone misses the road, doesn't he turn back? ⁵Why then, my people, do you turn away from me without ever turning back? You cling to your idols and refuse to return to me. ⁶I listened carefully, but you did not speak the truth. Not one of you has been sorry for your wickedness; not one of you has asked, 'What have I done wrong?' Each of you keep on going your own way, like a horse rushing into battle. ⁷Even storks know when it is time to return; doves, swallows, and thrushes know when it is time to migrate. But, my people, you do not know the laws by which I rule you. ⁸How can you say that you are wise and that you know my laws? Look, the laws have been changed by dishonest scribes. ⁹Your wise men are put to shame; they are confused and trapped. They have rejected my words; what wisdom do they have now? ¹⁰So I will give their fields to new owners and their wives to other men. Everyone, great and small, tries to make money dishonestly. Even prophets and priests cheat the people. ¹¹They act as if my people's wounds were only scratches. 'All is well,' they say, when all is not well. ¹²My people, were you ashamed because you did these disgusting things? No, you were not ashamed at all; you don't even know how to blush! And so you will fall as others have fallen; when I punish you, that will be the end of you. I, the LORD, have spoken.

¹³"I wanted to gather my people, as a farmer gathers a harvest; but they are like a vine with no grapes, like a fig tree with no figs; even the leaves have withered. Therefore, I have allowed outsiders to take over the land."

¹⁴"Why are we sitting still?" God's people ask. "Come on, we will run to the fortified cities and die there. The LORD our God has condemned us to die; he has given us poison to drink, because we have sinned against him. ¹⁵We hoped for peace and a time of healing, but it was no use; terror came instead. ¹⁶Our enemies are already in the city of Dan; we hear the snorting of their horses. The whole land trembles when their horses neigh. Our enemies have come to destroy our land and everything in it, our city and all its people."

¹⁷"Watch out!" the LORD says, "I am sending snakes among you, poisonous snakes that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you."

Jeremiah's Sorrow for His People

¹⁸My sorrow cannot be healed;

I am sick at heart.

¹⁹Listen! Throughout the land

I hear my people crying out,

"Is the LORD no longer in Zion?

Is Zion's king no longer there?"

The LORD, their king, replies,

"Why have you made me angry by worshiping your idols

and by bowing down to your useless foreign gods?"

²⁰The people cry out,

"The summer is gone, the harvest is over,

but we have not been saved."

²¹My heart has been crushed

because my people are crushed;

I mourn; I am completely dismayed.

²²Is there no medicine in Gilead?

Are there no doctors there?

Why, then, have my people not been healed?

In Praise of Jerusalem

Psalm 122 I was glad when they said to me,

"Let us go to the LORD's house."

²And now we are here,

standing inside the gates of Jerusalem!

³Jerusalem is a city restored

in beautiful order and harmony.

⁴This is where the tribes come,

the tribes of Israel,

to give thanks to the LORD

according to his command.

⁵Here the kings of Israel

sat to judge their people.

⁶Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

"May those who love you prosper.

⁷

May there be peace inside your walls

and safety in your palaces."

⁸For the sake of my relatives and friends

I say to Jerusalem, "Peace be with you!"

⁹For the sake of the house of the LORD our God

I pray for your prosperity.

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.