Daily Bible GNT November 23 Scroll

The Second Letter from
PETER

2 Peter 1 From Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ--

To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have been given a faith as precious as ours:

²May grace and peace be yours in full measure through your knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

God's Call and Choice

³God's divine power has given us everything we need to live a truly religious life through our knowledge of the one who called us to share in his own glory and goodness. ⁴In this way he has given us the very great and precious gifts he promised, so that by means of these gifts you may escape from the destructive lust that is in the world, and may come to share the divine nature. ⁵For this very reason do your best to add goodness to your faith; to your goodness add knowledge; ⁶to your knowledge add self-control; to your self-control add endurance; to your endurance add godliness; ⁷to your godliness add Christian affection; and to your Christian affection add love. ⁸These are the qualities you need, and if you have them in abundance, they will make you active and effective in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹But if you do not have them, you are so shortsighted that you cannot see and have forgotten that you have been purified from your past sins.

¹⁰So then, my friends, try even harder to make God's call and his choice of you a permanent experience; if you do so, you will never abandon your faith. ¹¹In this way you will be given the full right to enter the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

¹²And so I will always remind you of these matters, even though you already know them and are firmly grounded in the truth you have received. ¹³I think it only right for me to stir up your memory of these matters as long as I am still alive. ¹⁴I know that I shall soon put off this mortal body, as our Lord Jesus Christ plainly told me. ¹⁵I will do my best, then, to provide a way for you to remember these matters at all times after my death.

Eyewitnesses of Christ's Glory

¹⁶We have not depended on made-up stories in making known to you the mighty coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. With our own eyes we saw his greatness. ¹⁷We were there when he was given honor and glory by God the Father, when the voice came to him from the Supreme Glory, saying, "This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased!" ¹⁸We ourselves heard this voice coming from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain.

¹⁹So we are even more confident of the message proclaimed by the prophets. You will do well to pay attention to it, because it is like a lamp shining in a dark place until the Day dawns and the light of the morning star shines in your hearts. ²⁰Above all else, however, remember that none of us can explain by ourselves a prophecy in the Scriptures. ²¹For no prophetic message ever came just from the human will, but people were under the control of the Holy Spirit as they spoke the message that came from God.

Jeremiah 41 In the seventh month of that year, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama, a member of the royal family and one of the king's chief officers, went to Mizpah with ten men to see Governor Gedaliah. While they were all eating a meal together, ²Ishmael and the ten men with him pulled out their swords and killed Gedaliah. ³Ishmael also killed all the Israelites who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah and the Babylonian soldiers who happened to be there.

⁴The next day, before anyone knew about Gedaliah's murder, ⁵eighty men arrived from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria. They had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes, and gashed themselves. They were taking grain and incense to offer in the Temple. ⁶So Ishmael went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping as he went. When he came to them, he said, "Please come in to see Gedaliah." ⁷As soon as they were inside the city, Ishmael and his men killed them and threw their bodies in a well.

⁸But there were ten men in the group who said to Ishmael, "Please don't kill us! We have wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey hidden in the fields." So he spared them. ⁹The well into which Ishmael threw the bodies of the men he had killed was the large one that King Asa had dug when he was being attacked by King Baasha of Israel. Ishmael filled the well with the bodies. ¹⁰Then he made prisoners of the king's daughters and all the rest of the people in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the commanding officer had placed under the care of Gedaliah. Ishmael took them prisoner and started off in the direction of the territory of Ammon.

¹¹Johanan and all the army leaders with him heard of the crime that Ishmael had committed. ¹²So they went after him with their men and overtook him near the large pool at Gibeon. ¹³When Ishmael's prisoners saw Johanan and the leaders of the forces with him, they were glad, ¹⁴and turned and ran to them. ¹⁵But Ishmael and eight of his men got away from Johanan and escaped to the land of Ammon.

¹⁶Then Johanan and the leaders of the forces with him took charge of the people whom Ishmael had taken away as prisoners from Mizpah after murdering Gedaliah--soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs. ^17-18They were afraid of the Babylonians because Ishmael had murdered Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylonia had made governor of the land. So they set out for Egypt, in order to get away from the Babylonians. On the way they stopped at Chimham near Bethlehem.

The People Ask Jeremiah to Pray for Them

Jeremiah 42 Then all the army leaders, including Johanan son of Kareah and Azariah son of Hoshaiah, came with people of every class ²and said to me, "Please do what we ask you! Pray to the LORD our God for us. Pray for all of us who have survived. Once there were many of us; but now only a few of us are left, as you can see. ³Pray that the LORD our God will show us the way we should go and what we should do."

⁴I answered, "Very well, then. I will pray to the LORD our God, just as you have asked, and whatever he says, I will tell you. I will not keep back anything from you."

⁵Then they said to me, "May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not obey all the commands that the LORD our God gives you for us. ⁶Whether it pleases us or not, we will obey the LORD our God, to whom we are asking you to pray. All will go well with us if we obey him."

The LORD's Answer to Jeremiah's Prayer

⁷Ten days later the LORD spoke to me; ⁸so I called together Johanan, all the army leaders who were with him, and all the other people. ⁹I said to them, "The LORD, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me with your request has said, ¹⁰'If you are willing to go on living in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not pull you up. The destruction I brought on you has caused me great sorrow. ¹¹Stop being afraid of the king of Babylonia. I am with you, and I will rescue you from his power. ¹²Because I am merciful, I will make him have mercy on you and let you go back home. I, the LORD, have spoken.'

^13-15"But you people who are left in Judah must not disobey the LORD your God and refuse to live in this land. You must not say, 'No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we won't face war any more or hear the call to battle or go hungry.' If you say this, then the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says, 'If you are determined to go and live in Egypt, ¹⁶then the war that you fear will overtake you, and the hunger you dread will follow you, and you will die there in Egypt. ¹⁷All the people who are determined to go and live in Egypt will die either in war or of starvation or disease. Not one of them will survive, not one will escape the disaster that I am going to bring on them.'

¹⁸"The LORD, the God of Israel, says, 'Just as my anger and fury were poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so my fury will be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will be a horrifying sight; people will make fun of you and use your name as a curse. You will never see this place again.'"

¹⁹Then I continued, "The LORD has told you people who are left in Judah not to go to Egypt. And so I warn you now ²⁰that you are making a fatal mistake. You asked me to pray to the LORD our God for you, and you promised that you would do everything that he commands. ²¹And now I have told you, but you are disobeying everything that the LORD our God sent me to tell you. ²²So then, remember this: you will die in war or of starvation or disease in the land where you want to go and live."

God's Complete Knowledge and Care

Psalm 139 LORD, you have examined me and you know me.

²You know everything I do;

from far away you understand all my thoughts.

³You see me, whether I am working or resting;

you know all my actions.

⁴Even before I speak,

you already know what I will say.

⁵You are all around me on every side;

you protect me with your power.

⁶Your knowledge of me is too deep;

it is beyond my understanding.

⁷Where could I go to escape from you?

Where could I get away from your presence?

⁸If I went up to heaven, you would be there;

if I lay down in the world of the dead, you would be there.

⁹If I flew away beyond the east

or lived in the farthest place in the west,

¹⁰you would be there to lead me,

you would be there to help me.

¹¹I could ask the darkness to hide me

or the light around me to turn into night,

¹²but even darkness is not dark for you,

and the night is as bright as the day.

Darkness and light are the same to you.

¹³You created every part of me;

you put me together in my mother's womb.

¹⁴I praise you because you are to be feared;

all you do is strange and wonderful.

I know it with all my heart.

¹⁵When my bones were being formed,

carefully put together in my mother's womb,

when I was growing there in secret,

you knew that I was there--

¹⁶

you saw me before I was born.

The days allotted to me

had all been recorded in your book,

before any of them ever began.

¹⁷O God, how difficult I find your thoughts;

how many of them there are!

¹⁸If I counted them, they would be more than the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you.

¹⁹O God, how I wish you would kill the wicked!

How I wish violent people would leave me alone!

²⁰They say wicked things about you;

they speak evil things against your name.

²¹O LORD, how I hate those who hate you!

How I despise those who rebel against you!

²²I hate them with a total hatred;

I regard them as my enemies.

²³Examine me, O God, and know my mind;

test me, and discover my thoughts.

²⁴Find out if there is any evil in me

and guide me in the everlasting way.

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.