Tuesday, 21 Elul 5784 / September 24, 2024
Day 634 Readings
Torah: Parshat Nitzavim-Vayelech, 3rd Portion (Devarim (Deuteronomy) 30:7-30:14)
Deuteronomy 30:7-14
English Standard Version
7 And the Lord your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you. 8 And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments that I command you today. 9 The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, 10 when you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
The Choice of Life and Death
11 “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
Bible Study Together
Lamentations 3
English Standard Version
Great Is Your Faithfulness
1 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; 2 he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; 3 surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; 5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; 6 he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; 8 though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; 9 he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
10 He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding;11 he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; 12 he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
13 He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; 14 I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. 15 He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; 17 my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness[a] is; 18 so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.”
19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[b] his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. 27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
28 Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; 29 let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope; 30 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.
31 For the Lord will not cast off forever, 32 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; 33 for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.
34 To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, 35 to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High, 36 to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve.
37 Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? 39 Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?
40 Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord! 41 Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven: 42 “We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.
43 “You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity; 44 you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. 45 You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples.
46 “All our enemies open their mouths against us; 47 panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction; 48 my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49 “My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, 50 until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees; 51 my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
52 “I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; 53 they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; 54 water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’
55 “I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; 56 you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ 57 You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’
58 “You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life. 59 You have seen the wrong done to me, O Lord; judge my cause. 60 You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.
61 “You have heard their taunts, O Lord, all their plots against me. 62 The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long. 63 Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts.
64 “You will repay them,[c] O Lord, according to the work of their hands. 65 You will give them[d] dullness of heart; your curse will be[e] on them. 66 You will pursue them[f] in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O Lord.”[g]
Acts 15:22-35
English Standard Version
The Council's Letter to Gentile Believers
22 Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, 23 with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers[a] who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24 Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you[b] with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, 25 it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
30 So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. 31 And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. 32 And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. 33 And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them.[c] 35 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.
ESV Readings
Scripture
Psalm 53
English Standard Version
There Is None Who Does Good
To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath. A Maskil[a] of David.
1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand,[b] who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
4 Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?
5 There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror! For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you; you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
2 Samuel 13
Ezekiel 13
Luke 16
New American Standard Bible
The Unrighteous Manager
1 Now He was also saying to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and this manager was [a]reported to him as squandering his possessions. 2 And he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ 3 And the manager said to himself, ‘What am I to do, since my [b]master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to [c]dig; I am ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I will do, so that when I am removed from the management people will welcome me into their homes.’ 5 And he summoned each one of his [d]master’s debtors, and he began saying to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 And he said, ‘A hundred [e]jugs of oil.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ And he said, ‘A hundred [f]kors of wheat.’ He *said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 8 And his [g]master complimented the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own [h]kind than the sons of light. 9 And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the [i]wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it [j]is all gone, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.
10 “The one who is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in much; and the one who is unrighteous in a very little thing is also unrighteous in much. 11 Therefore if you have not [k]been faithful in the use of unrighteous [l]wealth, who will entrust the true wealth to you? 12 And if you have not [m]been faithful in the use of that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 13 No [n]servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and [o]wealth.”
14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were [p]ridiculing Him. 15 And He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the sight of people, but God knows your hearts; because that which is highly esteemed among people is detestable in the sight of God.
16 “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John came; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God [q]has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one [r]stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.
18 “Everyone who [s]divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is [t]divorced from a husband commits adultery.
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, enjoying himself in splendor every day. 20 And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, 21 and longing to be fed from the scraps which fell from the rich man’s table; not only that, the dogs also were coming and licking his sores. 22 Now it happened that the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to [u]Abraham’s arms; and the rich man also died and was buried. 23 And in Hades he raised his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his [v]arms. 24 And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 And [w]besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set, so that those who want to go over from here to you will not be able, nor will any people cross over from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I request of you, father, that you send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not come to this place of torment as well.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have [x]Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Luke 17:1-10
New American Standard Bible
Instructions
1 Now He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that [a]stumbling blocks come, but woe to one through whom they come! 2 It is better for him if a millstone is hung around his neck and he [b]is thrown into the sea, than that he may cause one of these little ones to [c]sin. 3 [d]Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 But the Lord said, “If you [e]had faith [f]the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would [g]obey you.
7 “Now which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him after he comes in from the field, ‘Come immediately and recline at the table to eat’? 8 On the contrary, will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly [h]clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and [i]afterward you [j]may eat and drink’? 9 He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? 10 So you too, when you do all the things which were commanded you, say, ‘We are [k]unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”