The One Year Bible TLB (79 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
I cry to the Lord; I call and call to him. Oh, that he would listen.
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I am in deep trouble and I need his help so much. All night long I pray, lifting my hands to heaven, pleading. There can be no joy for me until he acts.
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I think of God and moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help.
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I cannot sleep until you act. I am too distressed even to pray!
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I keep thinking of the good old days of the past, long since ended.
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Then my nights were filled with joyous songs. I search my soul and meditate upon the difference now.
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Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be favorable?
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Is his loving-kindness gone forever? Has his promise failed?
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Has he forgotten to be kind to one so undeserving? Has he slammed the door in anger on his love?
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And I said: This is my fate, that the blessings of God have changed to hate.
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I recall the many miracles he did for me so long ago.
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Those wonderful deeds are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about them.
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O God, your ways are holy. Where is there any other as mighty as you?
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You are the God of miracles and wonders! You still demonstrate your awesome power.
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You have redeemed us who are the sons of Jacob and of Joseph by your might.
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When the Red Sea saw you, how it feared! It trembled to its depths!
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The clouds poured down their rain, the thunder rolled and crackled in the sky. Your lightning flashed.
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There was thunder in the whirlwind; the lightning lighted up the world! The earth trembled and shook.
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Your road led by a pathway through the sea—a pathway no one knew was there!
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You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.
Some people like to make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise soothe and heal.
April 6It was on the plains of Moab that Moses restated the covenant that the Lord had made with the people of Israel at Mount Horeb.
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He summoned all Israel before him and told them, “You have seen with your own eyes the great plagues and mighty miracles that the Lord brought upon Pharaoh and his people in the land of Egypt.
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But even yet the Lord hasn’t given you hearts that understand or eyes that see or ears that hear!
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For forty years God has led you through the wilderness, yet your clothes haven’t become old, and your shoes haven’t worn out!
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The reason he hasn’t let you settle down to grow grain for bread or grapes for wine and strong drink is so that you would realize that it is the Lord your God who has been caring for you.
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“When we came here, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out against us in battle, but we destroyed them,
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and took their land and gave it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and to the half-tribe of Manasseh as their inheritance.
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Therefore, obey the terms of this covenant so that you will prosper in everything you do.
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All of you—your leaders, the people, your judges, and your administrative officers—are standing today before the Lord your God,
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along with your little ones and your wives and the foreigners that are among you—those who chop your wood and carry your water.
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You are standing here to enter into a contract with Jehovah your God, a contract he is making with you today.
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He wants to confirm you today as his people, and to confirm that he is your God, just as he promised your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
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This contract is not with you alone as you stand before him today, but with all future generations of Israel as well.
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“Surely you remember how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how as we left, we came safely through the territory of enemy nations.
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And you have seen their heathen idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold.
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The day that any of you—man or woman, family or tribe of Israel—begins to turn away from the Lord our God and desires to worship these gods of other nations, that day a root will be planted that will grow bitter and poisonous fruit.
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“Let no one blithely think, when he hears the warnings of this curse, ‘I shall prosper even though I walk in my own stubborn way!’
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For the Lord will not pardon! His anger and jealousy will be hot against that man. And all the curses written in this book shall lie heavily upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven.
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The Lord will separate that man from all the tribes of Israel, to pour out upon him all the curses (which are recorded in this book) that befall those who break this contract.
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Then your children and the generations to come and the foreigners that pass by from distant lands shall see the devastation of the land and the diseases the Lord will have sent upon it.
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They will see that the whole land is alkali and salt, a burned over wasteland, unsown, without crops, without a shred of vegetation—just like Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, destroyed by the Lord in his anger.
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“‘Why has the Lord done this to his land?’ the nations will ask. ‘Why was he so angry?’
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“And they will be told, ‘Because the people of the land broke the contract made with them by Jehovah, the God of their ancestors, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
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For they worshiped other gods, violating his express command.
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That is why the anger of the Lord was hot against this land, so that all his curses (which are recorded in this book) broke forth upon them.
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In great anger the Lord rooted them out of their land and threw them away into another land, where they still live today!’
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“There are secrets the Lord your God has not revealed to us, but these words that he has revealed are for us and our children to obey forever.
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“When all these things have happened to you—the blessings and the curses I have listed—you will meditate upon them as you are living among the nations where the Lord your God will have driven you.
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If at that time you want to return to the Lord your God, and you and your children have begun wholeheartedly to obey all of the commandments I have given you today,
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then the Lord your God will rescue you from your captivity! He will have mercy upon you and come and gather you out of all the nations where he will have scattered you.
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Though you are at the ends of the earth, he will go and find you and bring you back again
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to the land of your ancestors. You shall possess the land again, and he will do you good and bless you even more than he did your ancestors!
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He will cleanse your hearts and the hearts of your children and of your children’s children so that you will love the Lord your God with all your hearts and souls, and Israel shall come alive again!
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“If you return to the Lord and obey all the commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will take his curses and turn them against your enemies—against those who hate you and persecute you.
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The Lord your God will prosper everything you do and give you many children and much cattle and wonderful crops; for the Lord will again rejoice over you as he did over your fathers.
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He will rejoice if you but obey the commandments written in this book of the law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your hearts and souls.
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“Obeying these commandments is not something beyond your strength and reach;
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for these laws are not in the far heavens, so distant that you can’t hear and obey them, and with no one to bring them down to you;
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nor are they beyond the ocean, so far that no one can bring you their message;
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but they are very close at hand—in your hearts and on your lips—so obey them.
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“Look, today I have set before you life and death, depending on whether you obey or disobey.
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I have commanded you today to love the Lord your God and to follow his paths and to keep his laws, so that you will live and become a great nation, and so that the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to possess.
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But if your hearts turn away and you won’t listen—if you are drawn away to worship other gods—
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then I declare to you this day that you shall surely perish; you will not have a long, good life in the land you are going in to possess.
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“I call heaven and earth to witness against you that today I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Oh, that you would choose life; that you and your children might live!
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Choose to love the Lord your God and to obey him and to cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days. You will then be able to live safely in the land the Lord promised your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
As he [Jesus] was speaking, one of the Pharisees asked him home for a meal. When Jesus arrived, he sat down to eat without first performing the ceremonial washing required by Jewish custom. This greatly surprised his host.
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Then Jesus said to him,
“You Pharisees wash the outside, but inside you are still dirty—full of greed and wickedness!
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Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside?
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Purity is best demonstrated by generosity.
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“But woe to you Pharisees! For though you are careful to tithe even the smallest part of your income, you completely forget about justice and the love of God. You should tithe, yes, but you should not leave these other things undone.
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“Woe to you Pharisees! For how you love the seats of honor in the synagogues and the respectful greetings from everyone as you walk through the markets!
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Yes, awesome judgment is awaiting you. For you are like hidden graves in a field. Men go by you with no knowledge of the corruption they are passing.”
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“Sir,” said an expert in religious law who was standing there, “you have insulted my profession, too, in what you just said.”
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“Yes,”
said Jesus,
“the same horrors await you! For you crush men beneath impossible religious demands—demands that you yourselves would never think of trying to keep.
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Woe to you! For you are exactly like your ancestors who killed the prophets long ago.
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Murderers! You agree with your fathers that what they did was right—you would have done the same yourselves.
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“This is what God says about you: ‘I will send prophets and apostles to you, and you will kill some of them and chase away the others.’
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“And you of this generation will be held responsible for the murder of God’s servants from the founding of the world—
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from the murder of Abel to the murder of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, it will surely be charged against you.
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“Woe to you experts in religion! For you hide the truth from the people. You won’t accept it for yourselves, and you prevent others from having a chance to believe it.”
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The Pharisees and legal experts were furious; and from that time on they plied him fiercely with a host of questions, trying to trap him into saying something for which they could have him arrested.
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Meanwhile the crowds grew until thousands upon thousands were milling about and crushing each other. He turned now to his disciples and warned them,
“More than anything else, beware of these Pharisees and the way they pretend to be good when they aren’t. But such hypocrisy cannot be hidden forever.
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It will become as evident as yeast in dough.
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Whatever they
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have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms shall be broadcast from the housetops for all to hear!
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“Dear friends, don’t be afraid of these who want to murder you. They can only kill the body; they have no power over your souls.
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But I’ll tell you whom to fear—fear God who has the power to kill and then cast into hell.
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“What is the price of five sparrows? A couple of pennies? Not much more than that. Yet God does not forget a single one of them.
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And he knows the number of hairs on your head! Never fear, you are far more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows.”
O my people, listen to my teaching. Open your ears to what I am saying.
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For I will show you lessons from our history, stories handed down to us from former generations.
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I will reveal these truths to you so that you can describe these glorious deeds of Jehovah to your children and tell them about the mighty miracles he did.
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For he gave his laws to Israel and commanded our fathers to teach them to their children,
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so that they in turn could teach their children too. Thus his laws pass down from generation to generation.
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In this way each generation has been able to obey his laws and to set its hope anew on God and not forget his glorious miracles.
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Thus they did not need to be as their fathers were—stubborn, rebellious, unfaithful, refusing to give their hearts to God.
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The people of Ephraim, though fully armed, turned their backs and fled when the day of battle came
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because they didn’t obey his laws. They refused to follow his ways.
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And they forgot about the wonderful miracles God had done for them and for their fathers in Egypt.
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For he divided the sea before them and led them through! The water stood banked up along both sides of them!
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In the daytime he led them by a cloud, and at night by a pillar of fire.
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He split open the rocks in the wilderness to give them plenty of water, as though gushing from a spring.
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Streams poured from the rock, flowing like a river!
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Yet they kept on with their rebellion, sinning against the God who is above all gods.
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They murmured and complained, demanding other food than God was giving them.
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They even spoke against God himself. “Why can’t he give us decent food as well as water?” they grumbled.
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Jehovah heard them and was angry; the fire of his wrath burned against Israel
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because they didn’t believe in God or trust in him to care for them,
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even though he commanded the skies to open—he opened the windows of heaven—
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and rained down manna for their food. He gave them bread from heaven!
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They ate angels’ food! He gave them all they could hold.
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And he led forth the east wind and guided the south wind by his mighty power.
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He rained down birds as thick as dust, clouds of them like sands along the shore!
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He caused the birds to fall to the ground among the tents.
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The people ate their fill. He gave them what they asked for.
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But they had hardly finished eating, and the meat was yet in their mouths,
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when the anger of the Lord rose against them and killed the finest of Israel’s young men.