Day 260 of 365

Isa 18:1–21:17

18:1 Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;

18:2 that sends ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus on the waters, saying, "Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide!"

18:3 All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, look! When the trumpet is blown, listen!

18:4 For the Lord said to me, "I will be still, and I will see from my dwelling place, like the clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest."

18:5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches.

18:6 They will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth. The ravenous birds will summer on them, and all the animals of the earth will winter on them.

18:7 In that time, a present will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and smooth, even from a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, Mount Zion.

19:1 The burden of Egypt: "Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud, and comes to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence; and the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst.

19:2 I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians, and they will fight everyone against his brother, and everyone against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.

19:3 The spirit of Egypt will fail in its midst. I will destroy its counsel. They will seek the idols, the charmers, those who have familiar spirits, and the wizards.

19:4 I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord. A fierce king will rule over them," says the Lord, the Lord of hosts.

19:5 The waters will fail from the sea, and the river will be wasted and become dry.

19:6 The rivers will become foul. The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away.

19:7 The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all the sown fields of the Nile, will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.

19:8 The fishermen will lament, and all those who fish in the Nile will mourn, and those who spread nets on the waters will languish.

19:9 Moreover those who work in combed flax, and those who weave white cloth, will be confounded.

19:10 The pillars will be broken in pieces. All those who work for hire will be grieved in soul.

19:11 The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid. How do you say to Pharaoh, "I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?"

19:12 Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what the Lord of hosts has purposed concerning Egypt.

19:13 The princes of Zoan have become fools. The princes of Memphis are deceived. They have caused Egypt to go astray, who are the cornerstone of her tribes.

19:14 The Lord has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the midst of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in all of its works, like a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

19:15 Neither shall there be for Egypt any work, which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do.

19:16 In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which he shakes over them.

19:17 The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt. Everyone to whom mention is made of it will be afraid, because of the plans of the Lord of hosts, which he determines against it.

19:18 In that day, there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan, and swear loyalty to the Lord of hosts. One will be called "The City of the Sun."

19:19 In that day, there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border.

19:20 It will be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to the Lord because of oppressors, and he will send them a savior and a defender, and he will deliver them.

19:21 The Lord will be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day. Yes, they will worship with sacrifice and offering, and will make vows to the Lord, and will perform them.

19:22 The Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing. They will return to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas, and will heal them.

19:23 In that day there will be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.

19:24 In that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth;

19:25 because the Lord of hosts has blessed them, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance."

20:1 In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it;

20:2 at that time the Lord spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, "Go, and loosen the sackcloth from off your waist, and take your shoes from off your feet." He did so, walking naked and barefoot.

20:3 The Lord said, "As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia,

20:4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

20:5 They will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.

20:6 The inhabitants of this coast land will say in that day, 'Behold, this is our expectation, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria. And we, how will we escape?'"

21:1 The oracle of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the Negev sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.

21:2 A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media's sighing.

21:3 Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have taken hold on me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can't hear. I so am dismayed that I can't see.

21:4 My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.

21:5 They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!

21:6 For the Lord said to me, "Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees.

21:7 When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness."

21:8 He cried like a lion: "Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post.

21:9 Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs." He answered, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.

21:10 You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!" That which I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.

21:11 The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?"

21:12 The watchman said, "The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again."

21:13 The burden on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, you caravans of Dedanites.

21:14 They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.

21:15 For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.

21:16 For the Lord said to me, "Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,

21:17 and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for the Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken it."

1 Cor 4:1–21

1 So let a man think of us as Christ's servants, and stewards of God's mysteries.

2 Here, moreover, it is required of stewards, that they be found faithful.

3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by man's judgment. Yes, I do not judge my own self.

4 For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord.

5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God.

6 Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to go beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another.

7 For who makes you different? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

8 You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you.

9 For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men.

10 We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor.

11 Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.

12 We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure.

13 Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.

14 I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

15 For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News.

16 I beg you therefore, be imitators of me.

17 Because of this I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every church.

18 Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.

19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.

20 For the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

21 What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

Job 14:1–14

1 "Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.

2 He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn't continue.

3 Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgment with you?

4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his bounds that he can't pass;

6 Look away from him, that he may rest, until he shall accomplish, as a hireling, his day.

7 "For there is hope for a tree, If it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease.

8 Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground,

9 yet through the scent of water it will bud, and put forth boughs like a plant.

10 But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?

11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,

12 so man lies down and doesn't rise. Until the heavens are no more, they shall not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.

13 "Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would keep me secret, until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

14 If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my warfare would I wait, until my release should come.