Daily Bible GNT July 15 Scroll

Servants of God

1 Corinthians 3 As a matter of fact, my friends, I could not talk to you as I talk to people who have the Spirit; I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world, as children in the Christian faith. ²I had to feed you milk, not solid food, because you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for it, ³because you still live as the people of this world live. When there is jealousy among you and you quarrel with one another, doesn't this prove that you belong to this world, living by its standards? ⁴When one of you says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos"--aren't you acting like worldly people?

⁵After all, who is Apollos? And who is Paul? We are simply God's servants, by whom you were led to believe. Each one of us does the work which the Lord gave him to do: ⁶I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plant, but it was God who made the plant grow. ⁷The one who plants and the one who waters really do not matter. It is God who matters, because he makes the plant grow. ⁸There is no difference between the one who plants and the one who waters; God will reward each one according to the work each has done. ⁹For we are partners working together for God, and you are God's field.

You are also God's building. ¹⁰Using the gift that God gave me, I did the work of an expert builder and laid the foundation, and someone else is building on it. But each of you must be careful how you build. ¹¹For God has already placed Jesus Christ as the one and only foundation, and no other foundation can be laid. ¹²Some will use gold or silver or precious stones in building on the foundation; others will use wood or grass or straw. ¹³And the quality of each person's work will be seen when the Day of Christ exposes it. For on that Day fire will reveal everyone's work; the fire will test it and show its real quality. ¹⁴If what was built on the foundation survives the fire, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵But if your work is burnt up, then you will lose it; but you yourself will be saved, as if you had escaped through the fire.

¹⁶Surely you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you! ¹⁷God will destroy anyone who destroys God's temple. For God's temple is holy, and you yourselves are his temple.

¹⁸You should not fool yourself. If any of you think that you are wise by this world's standards, you should become a fool, in order to be really wise. ¹⁹For what this world considers to be wisdom is nonsense in God's sight. As the scripture says, "God traps the wise in their cleverness"; ²⁰and another scripture says, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are worthless." ²¹No one, then, should boast about what human beings can do. Actually everything belongs to you: ²²Paul, Apollos, and Peter; this world, life and death, the present and the future--all these are yours, ²³and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

King Baasha of Israel

1 Kings 15 ³³In the third year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah became king of all Israel, and he ruled in Tirzah for twenty-four years. ³⁴Like King Jeroboam before him, he sinned against the LORD and led Israel into sin.
1 Kings 16 The LORD spoke to the prophet Jehu son of Hanani and gave him this message for Baasha: ²"You were a nobody, but I made you the leader of my people Israel. And now you have sinned like Jeroboam and have led my people into sin. Their sins have aroused my anger, ³and so I will do away with you and your family, just as I did with Jeroboam. ⁴Any members of your family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and any who die in the open country will be eaten by vultures."

⁵Everything else that Baasha did and all his brave deeds are recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel. ⁶Baasha died and was buried in Tirzah, and his son Elah succeeded him as king.

⁷That message from the LORD against Baasha and his family was given by the prophet Jehu because of the sins that Baasha committed against the LORD. He aroused the LORD's anger not only because of the evil he did, just as King Jeroboam had done before him, but also because he killed all of Jeroboam's family.

King Elah of Israel

⁸In the twenty-sixth year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, Elah son of Baasha became king of Israel, and he ruled in Tirzah for two years. ⁹Zimri, one of his officers who was in charge of half of the king's chariots, plotted against him. One day in Tirzah, Elah was getting drunk in the home of Arza, who was in charge of the palace. ¹⁰Zimri entered the house, assassinated Elah, and succeeded him as king. This happened in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of King Asa of Judah.
¹¹As soon as Zimri became king he killed off all the members of Baasha's family. Every male relative and friend was put to death. ¹²And so, in accordance with what the LORD had said against Baasha through the prophet Jehu, Zimri killed all the family of Baasha. ¹³Because of their idolatry and because they led Israel into sin, Baasha and his son Elah had aroused the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel. ¹⁴Everything else that Elah did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel.

King Zimri of Israel

¹⁵In the twenty-seventh year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, Zimri ruled in Tirzah over Israel for seven days. The Israelite troops were besieging the city of Gibbethon in Philistia, ¹⁶and when they heard that Zimri had plotted against the king and assassinated him, then and there they all proclaimed their commander Omri king of Israel. ¹⁷Omri and his troops left Gibbethon and went and besieged Tirzah. ¹⁸When Zimri saw that the city had fallen, he went into the palace's inner fortress, set the palace on fire, and died in the flames. ¹⁹This happened because of his sins against the LORD. Like his predecessor Jeroboam, he displeased the LORD by his own sins and by leading Israel into sin. ²⁰Everything else that Zimri did, including the account of his conspiracy, is recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel.

King Omri of Israel

²¹The people of Israel were divided: some of them wanted to make Tibni son of Ginath king, and the others were in favor of Omri. ²²In the end, those in favor of Omri won out; Tibni died and Omri became king. ²³So in the thirty-first year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, Omri became king of Israel, and he ruled for twelve years. The first six years he ruled in Tirzah, ²⁴and then he bought the hill of Samaria for six thousand pieces of silver from a man named Shemer. Omri fortified the hill, built a town there, and named it Samaria, after Shemer, the former owner of the hill.
²⁵Omri sinned against the LORD more than any of his predecessors. ²⁶Like Jeroboam before him, he aroused the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, by his sins and by leading the people into sin and idolatry. ²⁷Everything else that Omri did and all his accomplishments are recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel. ²⁸Omri died and was buried in Samaria, and his son Ahab succeeded him as king.

King Ahab of Israel

²⁹In the thirty-eighth year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, Ahab son of Omri became king of Israel, and he ruled in Samaria for twenty-two years. ³⁰He sinned against the LORD more than any of his predecessors. ³¹It was not enough for him to sin like King Jeroboam; he went further and married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbaal of Sidon, and worshiped Baal. ³²He built a temple to Baal in Samaria, made an altar for him, and put it in the temple. ³³He also put up an image of the goddess Asherah. He did more to arouse the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than all the kings of Israel before him. ³⁴During his reign Hiel from Bethel rebuilt Jericho. As the LORD had foretold through Joshua son of Nun, Hiel lost his oldest son Abiram when he laid the foundation of Jericho, and his youngest son Segub when he built the gates.

God Will Judge the Nations

Joel 3 The LORD says,
"At that time I will restore
the prosperity of Judah and Jerusalem.
²I will gather all the nations
and bring them to the Valley of Judgment.
There I will judge them
for all they have done to my people.
They have scattered the Israelites in foreign countries
and divided Israel, my land.
³They threw dice to decide
who would get the captives.
They sold boys and girls into slavery
to pay for prostitutes and wine.

⁴"What are you trying to do to me, Tyre, Sidon, and all of Philistia? Are you trying to pay me back for something? If you are, I will quickly pay you back! ⁵You have taken my silver and gold and carried my rich treasures into your temples. ⁶You have taken the people of Judah and Jerusalem far from their own country and sold them to the Greeks. ⁷Now I am going to bring them out of the places to which you have sold them. I will do to you what you have done to them. ⁸I will let your sons and daughters be sold to the people of Judah; they will sell them to the far-off Sabeans. I, the LORD, have spoken.

⁹"Make this announcement among the nations:
'Prepare for war;
call your warriors;
gather all your soldiers and march!
¹⁰Hammer the points of your plows into swords
and your pruning knives into spears.
Even the weak must fight.
¹¹Hurry and come,
all you surrounding nations,
and gather in the valley.'"

Send down, O LORD, your army to attack them!

¹²"The nations must get ready
and come to the Valley of Judgment.
There I, the LORD, will sit to judge
all the surrounding nations.
¹³They are very wicked;
cut them down like grain
at harvest time;
crush them as grapes are crushed
in a full wine press
until the wine runs over."

¹⁴Thousands and thousands
are in the Valley of Judgment.
It is there that the day of the LORD
will soon come.
¹⁵The sun and the moon grow dark,
and the stars no longer shine.

God Will Bless His People

¹⁶The LORD roars from Mount Zion;
his voice thunders from Jerusalem;
earth and sky tremble.
But he will defend his people.
¹⁷"Then, Israel, you will know that I am the LORD your God.
I live on Zion, my sacred hill.
Jerusalem will be a sacred city;
foreigners will never conquer it again.
¹⁸At that time the mountains will be covered with vineyards,
and cattle will be found on every hill;
there will be plenty of water for all of Judah.
A stream will flow from the Temple of the LORD,
and it will water Acacia Valley.

¹⁹"Egypt will become a desert,
and Edom a ruined waste,
because they attacked the land of Judah
and killed its innocent people.
^20-21I will avenge those who were killed;
I will not spare the guilty.
But Judah and Jerusalem will be inhabited forever,
and I, the LORD, will live on Mount Zion."

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.