Daily Bible GNT January 12 Scroll

Jesus' Teaching on Prayer
(Matthew 6.9-13; 7.7-11)

Luke 11 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

²Jesus said to them, "When you pray, say this:

'Father:

May your holy name be honored;

may your Kingdom come.

Give us day by day the food we need.

⁴

Forgive us our sins,

for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.

And do not bring us to hard testing.'"

⁵And Jesus said to his disciples, "Suppose one of you should go to a friend's house at midnight and say, 'Friend, let me borrow three loaves of bread. ⁶A friend of mine who is on a trip has just come to my house, and I don't have any food for him!' ⁷And suppose your friend should answer from inside, 'Don't bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' ⁸Well, what then? I tell you that even if he will not get up and give you the bread because you are his friend, yet he will get up and give you everything you need because you are not ashamed to keep on asking. ⁹And so I say to you: Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰For those who ask will receive, and those who seek will find, and the door will be opened to anyone who knocks. ¹¹Would any of you who are fathers give your son a snake when he asks for fish? ¹²Or would you give him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? ¹³As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

Jesus and Beelzebul
(Matthew 12.22-30; Mark 3.20-27)

¹⁴Jesus was driving out a demon that could not talk; and when the demon went out, the man began to talk. The crowds were amazed, ¹⁵but some of the people said, "It is Beelzebul, the chief of the demons, who gives him the power to drive them out."

¹⁶Others wanted to trap Jesus, so they asked him to perform a miracle to show that God approved of him. ¹⁷But Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he said to them, "Any country that divides itself into groups which fight each other will not last very long; a family divided against itself falls apart. ¹⁸So if Satan's kingdom has groups fighting each other, how can it last? You say that I drive out demons because Beelzebul gives me the power to do so. ¹⁹If this is how I drive them out, how do your followers drive them out? Your own followers prove that you are wrong! ²⁰No, it is rather by means of God's power that I drive out demons, and this proves that the Kingdom of God has already come to you.

²¹"When a strong man, with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. ²²But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the owner was depending on and divides up what he stole.

²³"Anyone who is not for me is really against me; anyone who does not help me gather is really scattering.

The Return of the Evil Spirit
(Matthew 12.43-45)

²⁴"When an evil spirit goes out of a person, it travels over dry country looking for a place to rest. If it can't find one, it says to itself, 'I will go back to my house.' ²⁵So it goes back and finds the house clean and all fixed up. ²⁶Then it goes out and brings seven other spirits even worse than itself, and they come and live there. So when it is all over, that person is in worse shape than at the beginning."

True Happiness

²⁷When Jesus had said this, a woman spoke up from the crowd and said to him, "How happy is the woman who bore you and nursed you!"

²⁸But Jesus answered, "Rather, how happy are those who hear the word of God and obey it!"

The Sinfulness of Sodom

Genesis 19 When the two angels came to Sodom that evening, Lot was sitting at the city gate. As soon as he saw them, he got up and went to meet them. He bowed down before them ²and said, "Sirs, I am here to serve you. Please come to my house. You can wash your feet and spend the night. In the morning you can get up early and go on your way."

But they answered, "No, we will spend the night here in the city square."

³He kept on urging them, and finally they went with him to his house. Lot ordered his servants to bake some bread and prepare a fine meal for the guests. When it was ready, they ate it.

⁴Before the guests went to bed, the men of Sodom surrounded the house. All the men of the city, both young and old, were there. ⁵They called out to Lot and asked, "Where are the men who came to stay with you tonight? Bring them out to us!" The men of Sodom wanted to have sex with them.

⁶Lot went outside and closed the door behind him. ⁷He said to them, "Friends, I beg you, don't do such a wicked thing! ⁸Look, I have two daughters who are still virgins. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want with them. But don't do anything to these men; they are guests in my house, and I must protect them."

⁹But they said, "Get out of our way, you foreigner! Who are you to tell us what to do? Out of our way, or we will treat you worse than them." They pushed Lot back and moved up to break down the door. ¹⁰But the two men inside reached out, pulled Lot back into the house, and shut the door. ¹¹Then they struck all the men outside with blindness, so that they couldn't find the door.

Lot Leaves Sodom

¹²The two men said to Lot, "If you have anyone else here--sons, daughters, sons-in-law, or any other relatives living in the city--get them out of here, ¹³because we are going to destroy this place. The LORD has heard the terrible accusations against these people and has sent us to destroy Sodom."

¹⁴Then Lot went to the men that his daughters were going to marry, and said, "Hurry up and get out of here; the LORD is going to destroy this place." But they thought he was joking.

¹⁵At dawn the angels tried to make Lot hurry. "Quick!" they said. "Take your wife and your two daughters and get out, so that you will not lose your lives when the city is destroyed." ¹⁶Lot hesitated. The LORD, however, had pity on him; so the men took him, his wife, and his two daughters by the hand and led them out of the city. ¹⁷Then one of the angels said, "Run for your lives! Don't look back and don't stop in the valley. Run to the hills, so that you won't be killed."

¹⁸But Lot answered, "No, please don't make us do that, sir. ¹⁹You have done me a great favor and saved my life. But the hills are too far away; the disaster will overtake me, and I will die before I get there. ²⁰Do you see that little town? It is near enough. Let me go over there--you can see it is just a small place--and I will be safe."

²¹He answered, "All right, I agree. I won't destroy that town. ²²Hurry! Run! I can't do anything until you get there."

Because Lot called it small, the town was named Zoar.

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

²³The sun was rising when Lot reached Zoar. ²⁴Suddenly the LORD rained burning sulfur on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah ²⁵and destroyed them and the whole valley, along with all the people there and everything that grew on the land. ²⁶But Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.

²⁷Early the next morning Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood in the presence of the LORD. ²⁸He looked down at Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole valley and saw smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a huge furnace. ²⁹But when God destroyed the cities of the valley where Lot was living, he kept Abraham in mind and allowed Lot to escape to safety.

The Origin of the Moabites and Ammonites

³⁰Because Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, he and his two daughters moved up into the hills and lived in a cave. ³¹The older daughter said to her sister, "Our father is getting old, and there are no men in the whole world to marry us so that we can have children. ³²Come on, let's get our father drunk, so that we can sleep with him and have children by him." ³³That night they gave him wine to drink, and the older daughter had intercourse with him. But he was so drunk that he didn't know it.

³⁴The next day the older daughter said to her sister, "I slept with him last night; now let's get him drunk again tonight, and you sleep with him. Then each of us will have a child by our father." ³⁵So that night they got him drunk, and the younger daughter had intercourse with him. Again he was so drunk that he didn't know it. ³⁶In this way both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their own father. ³⁷The older daughter had a son, whom she named Moab. He was the ancestor of the present-day Moabites. ³⁸The younger daughter also had a son, whom she named Benammi. He was the ancestor of the present-day Ammonites.

A Prayer for Help

Psalm 12 Help us, LORD!

There is not a good person left;

honest people can no longer be found.

²All of them lie to one another;

they deceive each other with flattery.

³Silence those flattering tongues, O LORD!

Close those boastful mouths that say,

⁴"With our words we get what we want.

We will say what we wish,

and no one can stop us."

⁵"But now I will come," says the LORD,

"because the needy are oppressed

and the persecuted groan in pain.

I will give them the security they long for."

⁶The promises of the LORD can be trusted;

they are as genuine as silver

refined seven times in the furnace.

^7-8The wicked are everywhere,

and everyone praises what is evil.

Keep us always safe, O LORD,

and preserve us from such people.

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.