Daily Bible GNT January 01 Scroll

Jesus Calls Levi
(Matthew 9.9-13; Mark 2.13-17)

Luke 5 ²⁷After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting in his office. Jesus said to him, "Follow me." ²⁸Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.

²⁹Then Levi had a big feast in his house for Jesus, and among the guests was a large number of tax collectors and other people. ³⁰Some Pharisees and some teachers of the Law who belonged to their group complained to Jesus' disciples. "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and other outcasts?" they asked.

³¹Jesus answered them, "People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. ³²I have not come to call respectable people to repent, but outcasts."

The Question about Fasting
(Matthew 9.14-17; Mark 2.18-22)

³³Some people said to Jesus, "The disciples of John fast frequently and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but your disciples eat and drink."

³⁴Jesus answered, "Do you think you can make the guests at a wedding party go without food as long as the bridegroom is with them? Of course not! ³⁵But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast."

³⁶Jesus also told them this parable: "You don't tear a piece off a new coat to patch up an old coat. If you do, you will have torn the new coat, and the piece of new cloth will not match the old. ³⁷Nor do you pour new wine into used wineskins, because the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will pour out, and the skins will be ruined. ³⁸Instead, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins! ³⁹And you don't want new wine after drinking old wine. 'The old is better,' you say."

The Story of Creation

Genesis 1 In the beginning, when God created the universe, ²the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God was moving over the water. ³Then God commanded, "Let there be light"--and light appeared. ⁴God was pleased with what he saw. Then he separated the light from the darkness, ⁵and he named the light "Day" and the darkness "Night." Evening passed and morning came--that was the first day.

^6-7Then God commanded, "Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places"--and it was done. So God made a dome, and it separated the water under it from the water above it. ⁸He named the dome "Sky." Evening passed and morning came--that was the second day.

⁹Then God commanded, "Let the water below the sky come together in one place, so that the land will appear"--and it was done. ¹⁰He named the land "Earth," and the water which had come together he named "Sea." And God was pleased with what he saw. ¹¹Then he commanded, "Let the earth produce all kinds of plants, those that bear grain and those that bear fruit"--and it was done. ¹²So the earth produced all kinds of plants, and God was pleased with what he saw. ¹³Evening passed and morning came--that was the third day.

¹⁴Then God commanded, "Let lights appear in the sky to separate day from night and to show the time when days, years, and religious festivals begin; ¹⁵they will shine in the sky to give light to the earth"--and it was done. ¹⁶So God made the two larger lights, the sun to rule over the day and the moon to rule over the night; he also made the stars. ¹⁷He placed the lights in the sky to shine on the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God was pleased with what he saw. ¹⁹Evening passed and morning came--that was the fourth day.

²⁰Then God commanded, "Let the water be filled with many kinds of living beings, and let the air be filled with birds." ²¹So God created the great sea monsters, all kinds of creatures that live in the water, and all kinds of birds. And God was pleased with what he saw. ²²He blessed them all and told the creatures that live in the water to reproduce and to fill the sea, and he told the birds to increase in number. ²³Evening passed and morning came--that was the fifth day.

²⁴Then God commanded, "Let the earth produce all kinds of animal life: domestic and wild, large and small"--and it was done. ²⁵So God made them all, and he was pleased with what he saw.

²⁶Then God said, "And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small." ²⁷So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female, ²⁸blessed them, and said, "Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control. I am putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals. ²⁹I have provided all kinds of grain and all kinds of fruit for you to eat; ³⁰but for all the wild animals and for all the birds I have provided grass and leafy plants for food"--and it was done. ³¹God looked at everything he had made, and he was very pleased. Evening passed and morning came--that was the sixth day.
Genesis 2 And so the whole universe was completed. ²By the seventh day God finished what he had been doing and stopped working. ³He blessed the seventh day and set it apart as a special day, because by that day he had completed his creation and stopped working. ⁴And that is how the universe was created.

The Garden of Eden

When the LORD God made the universe, ⁵there were no plants on the earth and no seeds had sprouted, because he had not sent any rain, and there was no one to cultivate the land; ⁶but water would come up from beneath the surface and water the ground.

⁷Then the LORD God took some soil from the ground and formed a man out of it; he breathed life-giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live.

⁸Then the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad.

¹⁰A stream flowed in Eden and watered the garden; beyond Eden it divided into four rivers. ¹¹The first river is the Pishon; it flows around the country of Havilah. ( ¹²Pure gold is found there and also rare perfume and precious stones.) ¹³The second river is the Gihon; it flows around the country of Cush. ¹⁴The third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵Then the LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and guard it. ¹⁶He told him, "You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, ¹⁷except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day."

¹⁸Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to live alone. I will make a suitable companion to help him." ¹⁹So he took some soil from the ground and formed all the animals and all the birds. Then he brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and that is how they all got their names. ²⁰So the man named all the birds and all the animals; but not one of them was a suitable companion to help him.

²¹Then the LORD God made the man fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the flesh. ²²He formed a woman out of the rib and brought her to him. ²³Then the man said,

"At last, here is one of my own kind--

Bone taken from my bone, and flesh from my flesh.

'Woman' is her name because she was taken out of man."
²⁴That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one.

²⁵The man and the woman were both naked, but they were not embarrassed.

True Happiness

Psalm 1 Happy are those

who reject the advice of evil people,

who do not follow the example of sinners

or join those who have no use for God.

²Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the LORD,

and they study it day and night.

³They are like trees that grow beside a stream,

that bear fruit at the right time,

and whose leaves do not dry up.

They succeed in everything they do.

⁴But evil people are not like this at all;

they are like straw that the wind blows away.

⁵Sinners will be condemned by God

and kept apart from God's own people.

⁶The righteous are guided and protected by the LORD,

but the evil are on the way to their doom.

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.