Daily Bible GNT November 04 Scroll

1 Timothy 5 ²¹In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the holy angels I solemnly call upon you to obey these instructions without showing any prejudice or favor to anyone in anything you do. ²²Be in no hurry to lay hands on people to dedicate them to the Lord's service. Take no part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure.

²³Do not drink water only, but take a little wine to help your digestion, since you are sick so often.

²⁴The sins of some people are plain to see, and their sins go ahead of them to judgment; but the sins of others are seen only later. ²⁵In the same way good deeds are plainly seen, and even those that are not so plain cannot be hidden.
1 Timothy 6 Those who are slaves must consider their masters worthy of all respect, so that no one will speak evil of the name of God and of our teaching. ²Slaves belonging to Christian masters must not despise them, for they are believers too. Instead, they are to serve them even better, because those who benefit from their work are believers whom they love.

False Teaching and True Riches

You must teach and preach these things. ³Whoever teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the true words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching of our religion ⁴is swollen with pride and knows nothing. He has an unhealthy desire to argue and quarrel about words, and this brings on jealousy, disputes, insults, evil suspicions, ⁵and constant arguments from people whose minds do not function and who no longer have the truth. They think that religion is a way to become rich.

⁶Well, religion does make us very rich, if we are satisfied with what we have. ⁷What did we bring into the world? Nothing! What can we take out of the world? Nothing! ⁸So then, if we have food and clothes, that should be enough for us. ⁹But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and are caught in the trap of many foolish and harmful desires, which pull them down to ruin and destruction. ¹⁰For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows.

Personal Instructions

¹¹But you, man of God, avoid all these things. Strive for righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. ¹²Run your best in the race of faith, and win eternal life for yourself; for it was to this life that God called you when you firmly professed your faith before many witnesses. ¹³Before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who firmly professed his faith before Pontius Pilate, I command you ¹⁴to obey your orders and keep them faithfully until the Day when our Lord Jesus Christ will appear. ¹⁵His appearing will be brought about at the right time by God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. ¹⁶He alone is immortal; he lives in the light that no one can approach. No one has ever seen him; no one can ever see him. To him be honor and eternal power! Amen.

¹⁷Command those who are rich in the things of this life not to be proud, but to place their hope, not in such an uncertain thing as riches, but in God, who generously gives us everything for our enjoyment. ¹⁸Command them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share with others. ¹⁹In this way they will store up for themselves a treasure which will be a solid foundation for the future. And then they will be able to win the life which is true life.

²⁰Timothy, keep safe what has been entrusted to your care. Avoid the profane talk and foolish arguments of what some people wrongly call "Knowledge." ²¹For some have claimed to possess it, and as a result they have lost the way of faith.

God's grace be with you all.

Unfaithful Israel

Jeremiah 3 The LORD says, "If a man divorces his wife, and she leaves him and becomes another man's wife, he cannot take her back again. This would completely defile the land. But, Israel, you have had many lovers, and now you want to return to me! ²Look up at the hilltops. Is there any place where you have not acted like a prostitute? You waited for lovers along the roadside, as an Arab waits for victims in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution. ³That is why the rains were held back, and the spring showers did not come. You even look like a prostitute; you have no shame.

⁴"And now you say to me, 'You are my father, and you have loved me ever since I was a child. ⁵You won't always be angry; you won't be mad at me forever.' Israel, that is what you said, but you did all the evil you could."

Israel and Judah Must Repent

⁶When Josiah was king, the LORD said to me, "Have you seen what Israel, that unfaithful woman, has done? She has turned away from me, and on every high hill and under every green tree she has acted like a prostitute. ⁷I thought that after she had done all this, she would surely return to me. But she did not return, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it all. ⁸Judah also saw that I divorced Israel and sent her away because she had turned from me and had become a prostitute. But Judah, Israel's unfaithful sister, was not afraid. She too became a prostitute ⁹and was not at all ashamed. She defiled the land, and she committed adultery by worshiping stones and trees. ¹⁰And after all this, Judah, Israel's unfaithful sister, only pretended to return to me; she was not sincere. I, the LORD, have spoken."

¹¹Then the LORD told me that, even though Israel had turned away from him, she had proved to be better than unfaithful Judah. ¹²He told me to go and say to Israel, "Unfaithful Israel, come back to me. I am merciful and will not be angry; I will not be angry with you forever. ¹³Only admit that you are guilty and that you have rebelled against the LORD, your God. Confess that under every green tree you have given your love to foreign gods and that you have not obeyed my commands. I, the LORD, have spoken.

¹⁴"Unfaithful people, come back; you belong to me. I will take one of you from each town and two from each clan, and I will bring you back to Mount Zion. ¹⁵I will give you rulers who obey me, and they will rule you with wisdom and understanding. ¹⁶Then when you have become numerous in that land, people will no longer talk about my Covenant Box. They will no longer think about it or remember it; they will not even need it, nor will they make another one. ¹⁷When that time comes, Jerusalem will be called 'The Throne of the LORD,' and all nations will gather there to worship me. They will no longer do what their stubborn and evil hearts tell them. ¹⁸Israel will join with Judah, and together they will come from exile in the country in the north and will return to the land that I gave your ancestors as a permanent possession."

The Idolatry of God's People

¹⁹The LORD says,

"Israel, I wanted to accept you as my child

and give you a delightful land,

the most beautiful land in all the world.

I wanted you to call me father

and never again turn away from me.

²⁰But like an unfaithful wife,

you have not been faithful to me.

I, the LORD, have spoken."

²¹A noise is heard on the hilltops:

it is the people of Israel crying and pleading

because they have lived sinful lives

and have forgotten the LORD their God.

²²Return, all of you who have turned away from the LORD;

he will heal you and make you faithful.

You say, "Yes, we are coming to the LORD because he is our God. ²³We were not helped at all by our pagan worship on the hilltops. Help for Israel comes only from the LORD our God. ²⁴But the worship of Baal, the god of shame, has made us lose flocks and herds, sons and daughters--everything that our ancestors have worked for since ancient times. ²⁵We should lie down in shame and let our disgrace cover us. We and our ancestors have always sinned against the LORD our God; we have never obeyed his commands."

A Call to Repentance

Jeremiah 4 The LORD says, "People of Israel, if you want to turn, then turn back to me. If you are faithful to me and remove the idols I hate, ²it will be right for you to swear by my name. Then all the nations will ask me to bless them, and they will praise me."

³The LORD says to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, "Plow up your unplowed fields; do not plant your seeds among thorns. ⁴Keep your covenant with me, your LORD, and dedicate yourselves to me, you people of Judah and Jerusalem. If you don't, my anger will burn like fire because of the evil things you have done. It will burn, and there will be no one to put it out."

Judah Is Threatened with Invasion

⁵Blow the trumpet throughout the land!

Shout loud and clear!

Tell the people of Judah and Jerusalem

to run to the fortified cities.

⁶Point the way to Zion!

Run for safety! Don't delay!

The LORD is bringing disaster

and great destruction from the north.

⁷Like a lion coming from its hiding place,

a destroyer of nations has set out.

He is coming to destroy Judah.

The cities of Judah will be left in ruins,

and no one will live in them.

⁸So put on sackcloth, and weep and wail

because the fierce anger of the LORD

has not turned away from Judah.

⁹The LORD said, "On that day kings and officials will lose their courage; priests will be shocked and prophets will be astonished."

¹⁰Then I said, "Sovereign LORD, you have completely deceived the people of Jerusalem! You have said there would be peace, but a sword is at their throats."

¹¹The time is coming when the people of Jerusalem will be told that a scorching wind is blowing in from the desert toward them. It will not be a gentle wind that only blows away the chaff-- ¹²the wind that comes at the LORD's command will be much stronger than that! It is the LORD himself who is pronouncing judgment on his people.

Judah Is Surrounded by Enemies

¹³Look, the enemy is coming like clouds. Their war chariots are like a whirlwind, and their horses are faster than eagles. We are lost! We are doomed!

¹⁴Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart, so that you may be saved. How long will you go on thinking sinful thoughts?

¹⁵Messengers from the city of Dan and from the hills of Ephraim announce the bad news. ¹⁶They have come to warn the nations and to tell Jerusalem that enemies are coming from a country far away. These enemies will shout against the cities of Judah ¹⁷and will surround Jerusalem like men guarding a field, because her people have rebelled against the LORD. The LORD has spoken.

¹⁸Judah, you have brought this on yourself by the way you have lived and by the things you have done. Your sin has caused this suffering; it has stabbed you through the heart.

Jeremiah's Sorrow for His People

¹⁹The pain! I can't bear the pain!

My heart! My heart is beating wildly!

I can't keep quiet;

I hear the trumpets

and the shouts of battle.

²⁰One disaster follows another;

the whole country is left in ruins.

Suddenly our tents are destroyed;

their curtains are torn to pieces.

²¹How long must I see the battle raging

and hear the blasts of trumpets?

²²The LORD says, "My people are stupid;

they don't know me.

They are like foolish children;

they have no understanding.

They are experts at doing what is evil,

but failures at doing what is good."

Jeremiah's Vision of the Coming Destruction

²³I looked at the earth--it was a barren waste;

at the sky--there was no light.

²⁴I looked at the mountains--they were shaking,

and the hills were rocking back and forth.

²⁵I saw that there were no people;

even the birds had flown away.

²⁶The fertile land had become a desert;

its cities were in ruins

because of the LORD's fierce anger.

( ²⁷ The LORD has said that the whole earth will become a wasteland, but that he will not completely destroy it.)

²⁸The earth will mourn;

the sky will grow dark.

The LORD has spoken

and will not change his mind.

He has made his decision

and will not turn back.

²⁹At the noise of the cavalry and archers

everyone will run away.

Some will run to the forest;

others will climb up among the rocks.

Every town will be left empty,

and no one will live in them again.

³⁰Jerusalem, you are doomed!

Why do you dress in scarlet?

Why do you put on jewelry and paint your eyes?

You are making yourself beautiful for nothing!

Your lovers have rejected you

and want to kill you.

³¹I heard a cry, like a woman in labor,

a scream like a woman bearing her first child.

It was the cry of Jerusalem gasping for breath,

stretching out her hand and saying,

"I am doomed!

They are coming to kill me!"

A Prayer for Help

Psalm 120 When I was in trouble, I called to the LORD,

and he answered me.

²Save me, LORD,

from liars and deceivers.

³You liars, what will God do to you?

How will he punish you?

⁴With a soldier's sharp arrows,

with red-hot coals!

⁵Living among you is as bad as living in Meshech

or among the people of Kedar.

⁶I have lived too long

with people who hate peace!

⁷When I speak of peace,

they are for war.

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.