Daily Bible GNT December 15 Scroll

Shining as Lights in the World

Philippians 2 ¹²So then, dear friends, as you always obeyed me when I was with you, it is even more important that you obey me now while I am away from you. Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation, ¹³because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose.

¹⁴Do everything without complaining or arguing, ¹⁵so that you may be innocent and pure as God's perfect children, who live in a world of corrupt and sinful people. You must shine among them like stars lighting up the sky, ¹⁶as you offer them the message of life. If you do so, I shall have reason to be proud of you on the Day of Christ, because it will show that all my effort and work have not been wasted.

¹⁷Perhaps my life's blood is to be poured out like an offering on the sacrifice that your faith offers to God. If that is so, I am glad and share my joy with you all. ¹⁸In the same way, you too must be glad and share your joy with me.

Timothy and Epaphroditus

¹⁹If it is the Lord's will, I hope that I will be able to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be encouraged by news about you. ²⁰He is the only one who shares my feelings and who really cares about you. ²¹Everyone else is concerned only with their own affairs, not with the cause of Jesus Christ. ²²And you yourselves know how he has proved his worth, how he and I, like a son and his father, have worked together for the sake of the gospel. ²³So I hope to send him to you as soon as I know how things are going to turn out for me. ²⁴And I trust in the Lord that I myself will be able to come to you soon.

²⁵I have thought it necessary to send to you our brother Epaphroditus, who has worked and fought by my side and who has served as your messenger in helping me. ²⁶He is anxious to see you all and is very upset because you had heard that he was sick. ²⁷Indeed he was sick and almost died. But God had pity on him, and not only on him but on me, too, and spared me an even greater sorrow. ²⁸I am all the more eager, then, to send him to you, so that you will be glad again when you see him, and my own sorrow will disappear. ²⁹Receive him, then, with joy, as a believer in the Lord. Show respect to all such people as he, ³⁰because he risked his life and nearly died for the sake of the work of Christ, in order to give me the help that you yourselves could not give.

The LORD's Sword

Ezekiel 21 The LORD spoke to me. ²"Mortal man," he said, "denounce Jerusalem. Denounce the places where people worship. Warn the land of Israel ³that I, the LORD, am saying: I am your enemy. I will draw my sword and kill all of you, good and evil alike. ⁴I will use my sword against everyone from south to north. ⁵Everyone will know that I, the LORD, have drawn my sword and that I will not put it away.

⁶"Mortal man, groan as if your heart is breaking with despair. Groan in sorrow where everyone can watch you. ⁷When they ask you why you are groaning, tell them it is because of the news that is coming. When it comes, their hearts will be filled with fear, their hands will hang limp, their courage will fail, and their knees will tremble. The time has come; it is here." The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

⁸The LORD said to me, ⁹"Mortal man, prophesy. Tell the people what I, the Lord, am saying:

A sword, a sword is sharpened and polished.

¹⁰It is sharpened to kill,

polished to flash like lightning.

There can be no rejoicing,

for my people have disregarded every warning and punishment.

¹¹The sword is being polished,

to make it ready for use.

It is sharpened and polished,

to be put in the hands of a killer.

¹²Howl in grief, mortal man;

this sword is meant for my people

and for all the leaders of Israel.

They are going to be killed

with all the rest of my people.

Beat your breast in despair!

¹³I am testing my people,

and if they refuse to repent,

all these things will happen to them.

¹⁴"Now, mortal man, prophesy. Clap your hands, and the sword will strike again and again. It is a sword that kills, a sword that terrifies and slaughters. ¹⁵It makes my people lose courage and stumble. I am threatening their city with a sword that flashes like lightning and is ready to kill. ¹⁶Cut to the right and the left, you sharp sword! Cut wherever you turn. ¹⁷I also will clap my hands, and my anger will be over. I, the LORD, have spoken."

The Sword of the King of Babylonia

¹⁸The LORD spoke to me. ¹⁹"Mortal man," he said, "mark out two roads by which the king of Babylonia can come with his sword. Both of them are to start in the same country. Put up a signpost where the roads fork. ²⁰One will show the king the way to the Ammonite city of Rabbah, and the other the way to Judah, to the fortified city, Jerusalem. ²¹The king of Babylonia stands by the signpost at the fork of the road. To discover which way to go, he shakes the arrows; he consults his idols; he examines the liver of a sacrificed animal. ²²Now! His right hand holds the arrow marked 'Jerusalem'! It tells him to go and set up battering rams, to shout the battle cry, to place battering rams against the gates, to throw up earthworks, and to dig trenches. ²³The people of Jerusalem won't believe this because of the treaties they have made. But this prediction is to remind them of their sins and to warn them that they will be captured. ²⁴This then is what I, the Sovereign LORD, am saying: Your sins are exposed. Everyone knows how guilty you are. You show your sins in your every action. You stand condemned, and I will hand you over to your enemies.

²⁵"You wicked, unholy ruler of Israel, your day, the day of your final punishment, is coming. ²⁶I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken. Take off your crown and your turban. Nothing will be the same again. Raise the poor to power! Bring down those who are ruling! ²⁷Ruin, ruin! Yes, I will make the city a ruin. But this will not happen until the one comes whom I have chosen to punish the city. To him I will give it.

A Sword and the Ammonites

²⁸"Mortal man, prophesy. Announce what I, the Sovereign LORD, am saying to the Ammonites, who are insulting Israel. Say to them:

'A sword is ready to destroy;

It is polished to kill, to flash like lightning.
²⁹The visions that you see are false, and the predictions you make are lies. You are wicked and evil, and your day is coming, the day of your final punishment. The sword is going to fall on your necks.

³⁰"'Put up the sword! I will judge you in the place where you were created, in the land where you were born. ³¹You will feel my anger when I turn it loose on you like a blazing fire. And I will hand you over to brutal men, experts at destruction. ³²You will be destroyed by fire. Your blood will be shed in your own country, and no one will remember you any more.'" The LORD has spoken.

The Crimes of Jerusalem

Ezekiel 22 The LORD spoke to me. ²"Mortal man," he said, "are you ready to judge the city that is full of murderers? Make clear to her all the disgusting things she has done. ³Tell the city what I, the Sovereign LORD, am saying: Because you have murdered so many of your own people and have defiled yourself by worshiping idols, your time is coming. ⁴You are guilty of those murders and are defiled by the idols you made, and so your day is coming, your time is up! That is why I have let the nations make fun of you and all the countries sneer at you. ⁵Countries nearby and countries far away sneer at you because of your lawlessness. ⁶All Israel's leaders trust in their own strength and commit murder. ⁷None of you in the city honor your parents. You cheat foreigners and take advantage of widows and orphans. ⁸You have no respect for the holy places, and you don't keep the Sabbath. ⁹Some of your people tell lies about others in order to have them put to death. Some of them eat sacrifices offered to idols. Some are always satisfying their lusts. ¹⁰Some of them sleep with their father's wife. Some force women to have intercourse with them during their period. ¹¹Some commit adultery, and others seduce their daughters-in-law or their half sisters. ¹²Some of your people murder for pay. Some charge interest on the loans they make to other Israelites and get rich by taking advantage of them. They have forgotten me." The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

¹³"I will bring my fist down on your robberies and murders. ¹⁴Do you think you will have any courage left or have strength enough to lift your hand when I am finished with you? I, the LORD, have spoken, and I keep my word. ¹⁵I will scatter your people to every country and nation and will put an end to your evil actions. ¹⁶And so the other nations will dishonor you, but you will know that I am the LORD."

God's Refining Furnace

¹⁷The LORD said to me, ¹⁸"Mortal man, the Israelites are of no use to me. They are like waste metal--copper, tin, iron, and lead--left over after silver has been refined in a furnace. ¹⁹So now I, the Sovereign LORD, am telling them that they are just as useless as that. I will bring them all together in Jerusalem ²⁰in the same way that the ore of silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin is put in a refining furnace. My anger and rage will melt them the way fire melts ore. ²¹Yes, I will gather them in Jerusalem, build a fire under them, and melt them with my anger. ²²They will be melted in Jerusalem the way silver is melted in a furnace, and then they will know that they are feeling the anger of the LORD."

The Sins of Israel's Leaders

²³The LORD spoke to me again. ²⁴"Mortal man," he said, "tell the Israelites that their land is unholy, and so I am punishing it in my anger. ²⁵The leaders are like lions roaring over the animals they have killed. They kill the people, take all the money and property they can get, and by their murders leave many widows. ²⁶The priests break my law and have no respect for what is holy. They make no distinction between what is holy and what is not. They do not teach the difference between clean and unclean things, and they ignore the Sabbath. As a result the people of Israel do not respect me. ²⁷The government officials are like wolves tearing apart the animals they have killed. They commit murder in order to get rich. ²⁸The prophets have hidden these sins like workers covering a wall with whitewash. They see false visions and make false predictions. They claim to speak the word of the Sovereign LORD, but I, the LORD, have not spoken to them. ²⁹The wealthy cheat and rob. They mistreat the poor and take advantage of foreigners. ³⁰I looked for someone who could build a wall, who could stand in the places where the walls have crumbled and defend the land when my anger is about to destroy it, but I could find no one. ³¹So I will turn my anger loose on them, and like a fire I will destroy them for what they have done." The Sovereign LORD has spoken.

Isaiah 50 The LORD says,

"Do you think I sent my people away

like a man who divorces his wife?

Where, then, are the papers of divorce?

Do you think I sold you into captivity

like a man who sells his children as slaves?

No, you went away captive because of your sins;

you were sent away because of your crimes.

²"Why did my people fail to respond

when I went to them to save them?

Why did they not answer when I called?

Am I too weak to save them?

I can dry up the sea with a command

and turn rivers into a desert,

so that the fish in them die for lack of water.

³I can make the sky turn dark,

as if it were in mourning for the dead."

The Obedience of the LORD's Servant

⁴The Sovereign LORD has taught me what to say,

so that I can strengthen the weary.

Every morning he makes me eager

to hear what he is going to teach me.

⁵The LORD has given me understanding,

and I have not rebelled

or turned away from him.

⁶I bared my back to those who beat me.

I did not stop them when they insulted me,

when they pulled out the hairs of my beard

and spit in my face.

⁷But their insults cannot hurt me

because the Sovereign LORD gives me help.

I brace myself to endure them.

I know that I will not be disgraced,

⁸

for God is near,

and he will prove me innocent.

Does anyone dare bring charges against me?

Let us go to court together!

Let him bring his accusation!

⁹The Sovereign LORD himself defends me--

who, then, can prove me guilty?

All my accusers will disappear;

they will vanish like moth-eaten cloth.

¹⁰All of you that honor the LORD

and obey the words of his servant,

the path you walk may be dark indeed,

but trust in the LORD, rely on your God.

¹¹All of you that plot to destroy others

will be destroyed by your own plots.

The LORD himself will make this happen;

you will suffer a miserable fate.

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.