Daily Bible GNT November 14 Scroll

Warning against Prejudice

James 2 My friends, as believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, you must never treat people in different ways according to their outward appearance. ²Suppose a rich man wearing a gold ring and fine clothes comes to your meeting, and a poor man in ragged clothes also comes. ³If you show more respect to the well-dressed man and say to him, "Have this best seat here," but say to the poor man, "Stand over there, or sit here on the floor by my feet," ⁴then you are guilty of creating distinctions among yourselves and of making judgments based on evil motives.

⁵Listen, my dear friends! God chose the poor people of this world to be rich in faith and to possess the kingdom which he promised to those who love him. ⁶But you dishonor the poor! Who are the ones who oppress you and drag you before the judges? The rich! ⁷They are the ones who speak evil of that good name which has been given to you.

⁸You will be doing the right thing if you obey the law of the Kingdom, which is found in the scripture, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." ⁹But if you treat people according to their outward appearance, you are guilty of sin, and the Law condemns you as a lawbreaker. ¹⁰Whoever breaks one commandment is guilty of breaking them all. ¹¹For the same one who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not commit murder." Even if you do not commit adultery, you have become a lawbreaker if you commit murder. ¹²Speak and act as people who will be judged by the law that sets us free. ¹³For God will not show mercy when he judges the person who has not been merciful; but mercy triumphs over judgment.

Faith and Actions

¹⁴My friends, what good is it for one of you to say that you have faith if your actions do not prove it? Can that faith save you? ¹⁵Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don't have enough to eat. ¹⁶What good is there in your saying to them, "God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!"--if you don't give them the necessities of life? ¹⁷So it is with faith: if it is alone and includes no actions, then it is dead.

¹⁸But someone will say, "One person has faith, another has actions." My answer is, "Show me how anyone can have faith without actions. I will show you my faith by my actions." ¹⁹Do you believe that there is only one God? Good! The demons also believe--and tremble with fear. ²⁰You fool! Do you want to be shown that faith without actions is useless? ²¹How was our ancestor Abraham put right with God? It was through his actions, when he offered his son Isaac on the altar. ²²Can't you see? His faith and his actions worked together; his faith was made perfect through his actions. ²³And the scripture came true that said, "Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous." And so Abraham was called God's friend. ²⁴You see, then, that it is by our actions that we are put right with God, and not by our faith alone.

²⁵It was the same with the prostitute Rahab. She was put right with God through her actions, by welcoming the Israelite spies and helping them to escape by a different road.

²⁶So then, as the body without the spirit is dead, also faith without actions is dead.

Hope for the Future

Jeremiah 23 How terrible will be the LORD's judgment on those rulers who destroy and scatter his people! ²This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the rulers who were supposed to take care of his people: "You have not taken care of my people; you have scattered them and driven them away. Now I am going to punish you for the evil you have done. ³I will gather the rest of my people from the countries where I have scattered them, and I will bring them back to their homeland. They will have many children and increase in number. ⁴I will appoint rulers to take care of them. My people will no longer be afraid or terrified, and I will not punish them again. I, the LORD, have spoken."

⁵The LORD says, "The time is coming when I will choose as king a righteous descendant of David. That king will rule wisely and do what is right and just throughout the land. ⁶When he is king, the people of Judah will be safe, and the people of Israel will live in peace. He will be called 'The LORD Our Salvation.'

⁷"The time is coming," says the LORD, "when people will no longer swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. ⁸Instead, they will swear by me as the living God who brought the people of Israel out of a northern land and out of all the other countries where I had scattered them. Then they will live in their own land."

Jeremiah's Message about the Prophets

⁹My heart is crushed,

and I am trembling.

Because of the LORD,

because of his holy words,

I am like a man who is drunk,

someone who has had too much wine.

¹⁰The land is full of people unfaithful to the LORD;

they live wicked lives and misuse their power.

Because of the LORD's curse the land mourns

and the pastures are dry.

¹¹The LORD says,

"The prophets and the priests are godless;

I have caught them doing evil in the Temple itself.

¹²The paths they follow will be slippery and dark;

I will make them stumble and fall.

I am going to bring disaster on them;

the time of their punishment is coming.

I, the LORD, have spoken.

¹³I have seen the sin of Samaria's prophets:

they have spoken in the name of Baal

and have led my people astray.

¹⁴But I have seen the prophets in Jerusalem do even worse:

they commit adultery and tell lies;

they help people to do wrong,

so that no one stops doing what is evil.

To me they are all as bad

as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

¹⁵"So then, this is what I, the LORD Almighty, say about the prophets of Jerusalem:

I will give them bitter plants to eat

and poison to drink,

because they have spread ungodliness throughout the land."

¹⁶The LORD Almighty said to the people of Jerusalem, "Do not listen to what the prophets say; they are filling you with false hopes. They tell you what they have imagined and not what I have said. ¹⁷To the people who refuse to listen to what I have said, they keep saying that all will go well with them. And they tell everyone who is stubborn that disaster will never touch them."

¹⁸I said, "None of these prophets has ever known the LORD's secret thoughts. None of them has ever heard or understood his message, or ever listened or paid attention to what he said. ¹⁹His anger is a storm, a furious wind that will rage over the heads of the wicked, ²⁰and it will not end until he has done everything he intends to do. In days to come his people will understand this clearly."

²¹The LORD said, "I did not send these prophets, but even so they went. I did not give them any message, but still they spoke in my name. ²²If they had known my secret thoughts, then they could have proclaimed my message to my people and could have made them give up the evil lives they live and the wicked things they do.

²³"I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. ²⁴No one can hide where I cannot see them. Do you not know that I am everywhere in heaven and on earth? ²⁵I know what those prophets have said who speak lies in my name and claim that I have given them my messages in their dreams. ²⁶How much longer will those prophets mislead my people with the lies they have invented? ²⁷They think that the dreams they tell will make my people forget me, just as their ancestors forgot me and turned to Baal. ²⁸The prophet who has had a dream should say it is only a dream, but the prophet who has heard my message should proclaim that message faithfully. What good is straw compared with wheat? ²⁹My message is like a fire and like a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces. ³⁰I am against those prophets who take each other's words and proclaim them as my message. ³¹I am also against those prophets who speak their own words and claim they came from me. ³²Listen to what I, the LORD, say! I am against the prophets who tell their dreams that are full of lies. They tell these dreams and lead my people astray with their lies and their boasting. I did not send them or order them to go, and they are of no help at all to the people. I, the LORD, have spoken."

The LORD's Burden

³³The LORD said to me, "Jeremiah, when one of my people or a prophet or a priest asks you, 'What is the LORD's message?' you are to say, 'You are a burden to the LORD, and he is going to get rid of you.' ³⁴If any of my people or a prophet or a priest even uses the words 'the LORD's burden,' I will punish them and their families. ³⁵Instead, each one of them should ask their friends and their relatives, 'What answer has the LORD given? What has the LORD said?' ³⁶So they must no longer use the words 'the LORD's burden,' because if any of them do, I will make my message a real burden to them. The people have perverted the words of their God, the living God, the LORD Almighty. ³⁷Jeremiah, ask the prophets, 'What answer did the LORD give you? What did the LORD say?' ³⁸And if they disobey my command and use the words 'the LORD's burden,' then tell them that ³⁹I will certainly pick them up and throw them far away from me, both them and the city that I gave to them and their ancestors. ⁴⁰I will bring on them everlasting shame and disgrace that will never be forgotten."

Two Baskets of Figs

Jeremiah 24 The LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple. (This was after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia had taken away Jehoiakim's son, King Jehoiachin of Judah, as a prisoner from Jerusalem to Babylonia, together with the leaders of Judah, the craftworkers, and the skilled workers.) ²The first basket contained good figs, those that ripen early; the other one contained bad figs, too bad to eat. ³Then the LORD said to me, "Jeremiah, what do you see?"

I answered, "Figs. The good ones are very good, and the bad ones are very bad, too bad to eat."

⁴So the LORD said to me, ⁵"I, the LORD, the God of Israel, consider that the people who were taken away to Babylonia are like these good figs, and I will treat them with kindness. ⁶I will watch over them and bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not pull them up. ⁷I will give them the desire to know that I am the LORD. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God, because they will return to me with all their heart.

⁸"As for King Zedekiah of Judah, the politicians around him, and the rest of the people of Jerusalem who have stayed in this land or moved to Egypt--I, the LORD, will treat them all like these figs that are too bad to be eaten. ⁹I will bring such a disaster on them that all the nations of the world will be terrified. People will make fun of them, make jokes about them, ridicule them, and use their name as a curse everywhere I scatter them. ¹⁰I will bring war, starvation, and disease on them until there is not one of them left in the land that I gave to them and their ancestors."

A Prayer for Help

Psalm 130 From the depths of my despair I call to you, LORD.

²Hear my cry, O Lord;

listen to my call for help!

³If you kept a record of our sins,

who could escape being condemned?

⁴But you forgive us,

so that we should stand in awe of you.

⁵I wait eagerly for the LORD's help,

and in his word I trust.

⁶I wait for the Lord

more eagerly than sentries wait for the dawn--

than sentries wait for the dawn.

⁷Israel, trust in the LORD,

because his love is constant

and he is always willing to save.

⁸He will save his people Israel

from all their sins.

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.