Daily Bible GNT November 13 Scroll

The Letter from
JAMES

James 1 From James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ:

Greetings to all God's people scattered over the whole world.

Faith and Wisdom

²My friends, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, ³for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure. ⁴Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. ⁵But if any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all. ⁶But when you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind. ^7-8If you are like that, unable to make up your mind and undecided in all you do, you must not think that you will receive anything from the Lord.

Poverty and Riches

⁹Those Christians who are poor must be glad when God lifts them up, ¹⁰and the rich Christians must be glad when God brings them down. For the rich will pass away like the flower of a wild plant. ¹¹The sun rises with its blazing heat and burns the plant; its flower falls off, and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way the rich will be destroyed while they go about their business.

Testing and Tempting

¹²Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him. ¹³If we are tempted by such trials, we must not say, "This temptation comes from God." For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴But we are tempted when we are drawn away and trapped by our own evil desires. ¹⁵Then our evil desires conceive and give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

¹⁶Do not be deceived, my dear friends! ¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect present comes from heaven; it comes down from God, the Creator of the heavenly lights, who does not change or cause darkness by turning. ¹⁸By his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth, so that we should have first place among all his creatures.

Hearing and Doing

¹⁹Remember this, my dear friends! Everyone must be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry. ²⁰Human anger does not achieve God's righteous purpose. ²¹So get rid of every filthy habit and all wicked conduct. Submit to God and accept the word that he plants in your hearts, which is able to save you.

²²Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to his word; instead, put it into practice. ²³If you listen to the word, but do not put it into practice you are like people who look in a mirror and see themselves as they are. ²⁴They take a good look at themselves and then go away and at once forget what they look like. ²⁵But if you look closely into the perfect law that sets people free, and keep on paying attention to it and do not simply listen and then forget it, but put it into practice--you will be blessed by God in what you do.

²⁶Do any of you think you are religious? If you do not control your tongue, your religion is worthless and you deceive yourself. ²⁷What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world.

Jerusalem's Defeat Is Predicted

Jeremiah 21 King Zedekiah of Judah sent to me Pashhur son of Malchiah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah with this request: ²"Please speak to the LORD for us, because King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his army are besieging the city. Maybe the LORD will perform one of his miracles for us and force Nebuchadnezzar to retreat."

³Then the LORD spoke to me, and I told those who had been sent to me ⁴to tell Zedekiah that the LORD, the God of Israel, had said, "Zedekiah, I am going to defeat your army that is fighting against the king of Babylonia and his army. I will pile up your soldiers' weapons in the center of the city. ⁵I will fight against you with all my might, my anger, my wrath, and my fury. ⁶I will kill everyone living in this city; people and animals alike will die of a terrible disease. ⁷But as for you, your officials, and the people who survive the war, the famine, and the disease--I will let all of you be captured by King Nebuchadnezzar and by your enemies, who want to kill you. Nebuchadnezzar will put you to death. He will not spare any of you or show mercy or pity to any of you. I, the LORD, have spoken."

⁸Then the LORD told me to say to the people, "Listen! I, the LORD, am giving you a choice between the way that leads to life and the way that leads to death. ⁹Anyone who stays in the city will be killed in war or by starvation or disease. But those who go out and surrender to the Babylonians, who are now attacking the city, will not be killed; they will at least escape with their life. ¹⁰I have made up my mind not to spare this city, but to destroy it. It will be given over to the king of Babylonia, and he will burn it to the ground. I, the LORD, have spoken."

Judgment on the Royal House of Judah

^11-12The LORD told me to give this message to the royal house of Judah, the descendants of David: "Listen to what I, the LORD, am saying. See that justice is done every day. Protect the person who is being cheated from the one who is cheating him. If you don't, the evil you are doing will make my anger burn like a fire that cannot be put out. ¹³You, Jerusalem, are sitting high above the valleys, like a rock rising above the plain. But I will fight against you. You say that no one can attack you or break through your defenses. ¹⁴But I will punish you for what you have done. I will set your palace on fire, and the fire will burn down everything around it. I, the LORD, have spoken."

Jeremiah's Message to the Royal House of Judah

Jeremiah 22 ^1-2The LORD told me to go to the palace of the king of Judah, the descendant of David, and there tell the king, his officials, and the people of Jerusalem to listen to what the LORD had said: ³"I, the LORD, command you to do what is just and right. Protect the person who is being cheated from the one who is cheating him. Do not mistreat or oppress aliens, orphans, or widows; and do not kill innocent people in this holy place. ⁴If you really do as I have commanded, then David's descendants will continue to be kings. And they, together with their officials and their people, will continue to pass through the gates of this palace in chariots and on horses. ⁵But if you do not obey my commands, then I swear to you that this palace will fall into ruins. I, the LORD, have spoken.

⁶"To me, Judah's royal palace is as beautiful as the land of Gilead and as the Lebanon Mountains; but I will make it a desolate place where no one lives. ⁷I am sending men to destroy it. They will all bring their axes, cut down its beautiful cedar pillars, and throw them into the fire.

⁸"Afterward many foreigners will pass by and ask one another why I, the LORD, have done such a thing to this great city. ⁹Then they will answer that it is because you have abandoned your covenant with me, your God, and have worshiped and served other gods."

Jeremiah's Message concerning Joahaz

¹⁰People of Judah, do not weep for King Josiah;

do not mourn his death.

But weep bitterly for Joahaz, his son;

they are taking him away, never to return,

never again to see the land where he was born.

¹¹The LORD says concerning Josiah's son Joahaz, who succeeded his father as king of Judah, "He has gone away from here, never to return. ¹²He will die in the country where they have taken him, and he will never again see this land."

Jeremiah's Message concerning Jehoiakim

¹³Doomed is the one who builds his house by injustice

and enlarges it by dishonesty;

who makes his people work for nothing

and does not pay their wages.

¹⁴Doomed is the one who says,

"I will build myself a mansion

with spacious rooms upstairs."

So he puts windows in his house,

panels it with cedar,

and paints it red.

¹⁵Does it make you a better king

if you build houses of cedar,

finer than those of others?

Your father enjoyed a full life.

He was always just and fair,

and he prospered in everything he did.

¹⁶He gave the poor a fair trial,

and all went well with him.

That is what it means to know the LORD.

¹⁷But you can only see your selfish interests;

you kill the innocent

and violently oppress your people.

The LORD has spoken.

¹⁸So then, the LORD says about Josiah's son Jehoiakim, king of Judah,

"No one will mourn his death or say,

'How terrible, my friend, how terrible!'

No one will weep for him or cry,

'My lord! My king!'

¹⁹With the funeral honors of a donkey,

he will be dragged away

and thrown outside Jerusalem's gates."

Jeremiah's Message about the Fate of Jerusalem

²⁰People of Jerusalem, go to Lebanon and shout,

go to the land of Bashan and cry;

call out from the mountains of Moab,

because all your allies have been defeated.

²¹The LORD spoke to you when you were prosperous,

but you refused to listen.

That is what you've done all your life;

you never would obey the LORD.

²²Your leaders will be blown away by the wind,

your allies taken as prisoners of war,

your city disgraced and put to shame

because of all the evil you have done.

²³You rest secure among the cedars brought from Lebanon;

but how pitiful you'll be when pains strike you,

pains like those of a woman in labor.

God's Judgment on Jehoiachin

²⁴The LORD said to King Jehoiachin, son of King Jehoiakim of Judah, "As surely as I am the living God, even if you were the signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off ²⁵and give you to people you are afraid of, people who want to kill you. I will give you to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and his soldiers. ²⁶I am going to force you and your mother into exile. You will go to a country where neither of you was born, and both of you will die there. ²⁷You will long to see this country again, but you will never return."

²⁸I said, "Has King Jehoiachin become like a broken jar that is thrown away and that no one wants? Is that why he and his children have been taken into exile to a land they know nothing about?"

²⁹O land, land, land!

Listen to what the LORD has said:

³⁰"This man is condemned to lose his children,

to be a man who will never succeed.

He will have no descendants

who will rule in Judah

as David's successors.

I, the LORD, have spoken."

A Prayer against Israel's Enemies

Psalm 129 Israel, tell us how your enemies have persecuted you

ever since you were young.

²"Ever since I was young,

my enemies have persecuted me cruelly,

but they have not overcome me.

³They cut deep wounds in my back

and made it like a plowed field.

⁴But the LORD, the righteous one,

has freed me from slavery."

⁵May everyone who hates Zion

be defeated and driven back.

⁶May they all be like grass growing on the housetops,

which dries up before it can grow;

⁷

no one gathers it up

or carries it away in bundles.

⁸No one who passes by will say,

"May the LORD bless you!

We bless you in the name of the LORD."

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.