The
Healing at the Pool
John 5 After
this, Jesus went to Jerusalem for a religious festival. 2Near
the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool with five
porches; in Hebrew it is called Bethzatha. 3A large
crowd of sick people were lying on the porches--the
blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. 5A man
was there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6Jesus
saw him lying there, and he knew that the man had been
sick for such a long time; so he asked him, "Do you
want to get well?"
7The
sick man answered, "Sir, I don't have anyone here to
put me in the pool when the water is stirred up; while I
am trying to get in, somebody else gets there
first."
8Jesus
said to him, "Get up, pick up your mat, and
walk." 9Immediately the man got well; he
picked up his mat and started walking.
The
day this happened was a Sabbath, 10so the
Jewish authorities told the man who had been healed,
"This is a Sabbath, and it is against our Law for
you to carry your mat."
11He
answered, "The man who made me well told me to pick
up my mat and walk."
12They
asked him, "Who is the man who told you to do
this?"
13But
the man who had been healed did not know who Jesus was,
for there was a crowd in that place, and Jesus had
slipped away.
14Afterward,
Jesus found him in the Temple and said, "Listen, you
are well now; so stop sinning or something worse may
happen to you."
15Then
the man left and told the Jewish authorities that it was
Jesus who had healed him. 16So they began to
persecute Jesus, because he had done this healing on a
Sabbath. 17Jesus answered them, "My
Father is always working, and I too must work."
18This
saying made the Jewish authorities all the more
determined to kill him; not only had he broken the
Sabbath law, but he had said that God was his own Father
and in this way had made himself equal with God.
David's Military Victories
(2 Samuel 8.1-18)
1 Chronicles 18 Some
time later King David attacked the Philistines again and
defeated them. He took out of their control the city of
Gath and its surrounding villages. 2He also
defeated the Moabites, who became his subjects and paid
taxes to him.
3Next,
David attacked King Hadadezer of the Syrian state of
Zobah, near the territory of Hamath, because Hadadezer
was trying to gain control of the territory by the upper
Euphrates River. 4David captured a thousand of
his chariots, seven thousand cavalry troops, and twenty
thousand foot soldiers. He kept enough horses for a
hundred chariots and crippled all the rest.
5When
the Syrians of Damascus sent an army to help King
Hadadezer, David attacked it and killed twenty-two
thousand men. 6Then he set up military camps
in their territory, and they became his subjects and paid
taxes to him. The LORD made David
victorious everywhere. 7David captured the
gold shields carried by Hadadezer's officials and took
them to Jerusalem. 8He also took a great
quantity of bronze from Tibhath and Kun, cities ruled by
Hadadezer. (Solomon later used this bronze to make the
tank, the columns, and the bronze utensils for the
Temple.)
9King
Toi of Hamath heard that David had defeated Hadadezer's
entire army. 10So he sent his son Joram to
greet King David and congratulate him for his victory
over Hadadezer, against whom Toi had fought many times.
Joram brought David presents made of gold, silver, and
bronze. 11King David dedicated them for use in
worship, along with the silver and gold he took from the
nations he conquered--Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, and
Amalek.
12Abishai,
whose mother was Zeruiah, defeated the Edomites in Salt
Valley and killed eighteen thousand of them. 13He
set up military camps throughout Edom, and the people
there became King David's subjects. The LORD
made David victorious everywhere.
14David
ruled over all Israel and made sure that his people were
always treated fairly and justly. 15Abishai's
brother Joab was commander of the army; Jehoshaphat son
of Ahilud was in charge of the records; 16Zadok
son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were priests;
Seraiah was court secretary; 17Benaiah son of
Jehoiada was in charge of David's bodyguards; and King
David's sons held high positions in his service.
David Defeats
the Ammonites and the Syrians
(2 Samuel 10.1-19)
1 Chronicles 19 Some
time later King Nahash of Ammon died, and his son Hanun
became king. 2King David said, "I must
show loyal friendship to Hanun, as his father Nahash did
to me." So David sent messengers to express his
sympathy.
When
they arrived in Ammon and called on King Hanun, 3the
Ammonite leaders said to the king, "Do you think
that it is in your father's honor that David has sent
these men to express sympathy to you? Of course not! He
has sent them here as spies to explore the land, so that
he can conquer it!"
4Hanun
seized David's messengers, shaved off their beards, cut
off their clothes at the hips, and sent them away. 5They
were too ashamed to return home. When David heard what
had happened, he sent word for them to stay in Jericho
and not return until their beards had grown again.
6King
Hanun and the Ammonites realized that they had made David
their enemy, so they paid nearly forty tons of silver to
hire chariots and charioteers from Upper Mesopotamia and
from the Syrian states of Maacah and Zobah. 7The
thirty-two thousand chariots they hired and the army of
the king of Maacah came and camped near Medeba. The
Ammonites too came out from all their cities and got
ready to fight.
8When
David heard what was happening, he sent out Joab and the
whole army. 9The Ammonites marched out and
took up their position at the entrance to Rabbah, their
capital city, and the kings who had come to help took up
their position in the open countryside.
10Joab
saw that the enemy troops would attack him in front and
from the rear, so he chose the best of Israel's soldiers
and put them in position facing the Syrians. 11He
placed the rest of his troops under the command of his
brother Abishai, who put them in position facing the
Ammonites. 12Joab said to him, "If you
see that the Syrians are defeating me, come and help me,
and if the Ammonites are defeating you, I will go and
help you. 13Be strong and courageous! Let's
fight hard for our people and for the cities of our God.
And may the LORD's will be
done."
14Joab
and his men advanced to attack, and the Syrians fled. 15When
the Ammonites saw the Syrians running away, they fled
from Abishai and retreated into the city. Then Joab went
back to Jerusalem.
16The
Syrians realized that they had been defeated by the
Israelites, so they brought troops from the Syrian states
on the east side of the Euphrates River and placed them
under the command of Shobach, commander of the army of
King Hadadezer of Zobah. 17When David heard of
it, he gathered the Israelite troops, crossed the Jordan
River, and put them in position facing the Syrians. The
fighting began, 18and the Israelites drove the
Syrian army back. David and his men killed seven thousand
Syrian chariot drivers and forty thousand foot soldiers.
They also killed the Syrian commander, Shobach. 19When
the kings who were subject to Hadadezer realized that
they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with
David and became his subjects. 20The Syrians
were never again willing to help the Ammonites.
The LORD
Condemns Insincere Fasting
Zechariah 7 In the
fourth year that Darius was emperor, on the fourth day of
the ninth month (the month of Kislev), the LORD gave me a message.
2The
people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and
their men to the Temple of the LORD
Almighty to pray for the LORD's
blessing 3and to ask the priests and the
prophets this question: "Should we continue to mourn
because of the destruction of the Temple, by fasting in
the fifth month as we have done for so many
years now?"
4This
is the message of the LORD that
came to me. 5He said, "Tell the people of
the land and the priests that when they fasted and
mourned in the fifth and seventh months during these
seventy years, it was not in honor of me. 6And
when they ate and drank, it was for their own
satisfaction."
7This
is what the LORD said through the
earlier prophets at the time when Jerusalem was
prosperous and filled with people and when there were
many people living not only in the towns around the city
but also in the southern region and in the western
foothills.
Disobedience, the Cause
of Exile
8The
LORD gave this message to
Zechariah: 9"Long ago I gave these
commands to my people: 'You must see that justice is
done, and must show kindness and mercy to one another. 10Do
not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners who live among
you, or anyone else in need. And do not plan ways of
harming one another.'
11"But
my people stubbornly refused to listen. They closed their
minds 12and made their hearts as hard as rock.
Because they would not listen to the teaching which I
sent through the prophets who lived long ago, I became
very angry. 13Because they did not listen when
I spoke, I did not answer when they prayed. 14Like
a storm I swept them away to live in foreign countries.
This good land was left a desolate place, with no one
living in it."
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