2 Chronicles 5:1-6:11
1 1 When Solomon had finished constructing the Lord’s temple, he put the holy items that belonged to his father David (the silver, gold, and all the other articles) in the treasuries of God’s temple.
2 Then Solomon convened Israel’s elders—all the leaders of the Israelite tribes and families—in Jerusalem, so they could witness the transferal of the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the City of David (that is, Zion). 3 All the men of Israel assembled before the king during the festival in the seventh month. 4 When all Israel’s elders had arrived, the Levites lifted the ark. 5 The priests and Levites carried the ark, the tent where God appeared to his people, and all the holy items in the tent. 6 Now King Solomon and all the Israelites who had assembled with him went on ahead of the ark and sacrificed more sheep and cattle than could be counted or numbered.
7 The priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its assigned place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, in the Most Holy Place under the wings of the cherubim. 8 The cherubim’s wings extended over the place where the ark sat; the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles. 9 The poles were so long their ends extending out from the ark were visible from in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen from beyond that point. They have remained there to this very day. 10 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets Moses had placed there in Horeb. (It was there that the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after he brought them out of the land of Egypt.)
11 The priests left the Holy Place. All the priests who participated had consecrated themselves, no matter which division they represented. 12 All the Levites who were musicians, including Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and relatives, wore linen. They played cymbals and stringed instruments as they stood east of the altar. They were accompanied by 120 priests who blew trumpets. 13 The trumpeters and musicians played together, praising and giving thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments, they loudly praised the Lord, singing: “Certainly he is good; certainly his loyal love endures!” Then a cloud filled the Lord’s temple. 14 The priests could not carry out their duties because of the cloud; the Lord’s splendor filled God’s temple.
1 Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he lives in thick darkness. 2 O Lord, I have built a lofty temple for you, a place where you can live permanently.” 3 Then the king turned around and pronounced a blessing over the whole Israelite assembly as they stood there. 4 He said, “The Lord God of Israel is worthy of praise because he has fulfilled what he promised my father David. 5 He told David, ‘Since the day I brought my people out of the land of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from all the tribes of Israel to build a temple in which to live. Nor did I choose a man as leader of my people Israel. 6 But now I have chosen Jerusalem as a place to live, and I have chosen David to lead my people Israel.’ 7 Now my father David had a strong desire to build a temple to honor the Lord God of Israel. 8 The Lord told my father David, ‘It is right for you to have a strong desire to build a temple to honor me. 9 But you will not build the temple; your very own son will build the temple for my honor.’ 10 The Lord has kept the promise he made. I have taken my father David’s place and have occupied the throne of Israel, as the Lord promised. I have built this temple for the honor of the Lord God of Israel 11 and set up in it a place for the ark containing the covenant the Lord made with the Israelites.”
1 John 4
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that refuses to confess Jesus, that spirit is not from God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now is already in the world.
4 You are from God, little children, and have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world’s perspective and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God; the person who knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. 8 The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. 10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we reside in God and he in us: in that he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him. 17 By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he loved us first.
20 If anyone says “I love God” and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And the commandment we have from him is this: that the one who loves God should love his fellow Christian too.
Nahum 3
1 Woe to the city guilty of bloodshed!
She is full of lies;
she is filled with plunder;
she has hoarded her spoil!
2 The chariot drivers will crack their whips;
the chariot wheels will shake the ground.
The chariot horses will gallop;
the war chariots will bolt forward!
3 The charioteers will charge ahead;
their swords will flash
and their spears will glimmer!
There will be many people slain;
there will be piles of the dead
and countless casualties—
so many that people will stumble over the corpses.
4 Because you have acted like a wanton prostitute—
a seductive mistress who practices sorcery,
who enslaves nations by her harlotry,
and entices peoples by her sorcery—
5 “I am against you,” declares the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
“I will strip off your clothes!
I will show your nakedness to the nations
and your shame to the kingdoms.
6 I will pelt you with filth;
I will treat you with contempt;
I will make you a public spectacle.
7 Everyone who sees you will turn away from you in disgust;
they will say, ‘Nineveh has been devastated!
Who will lament for her?’
There will be no one to comfort you!”
8 You are no more secure than Thebes—
she was located on the banks of the Nile;
the waters surrounded her—
her rampart was the sea,
the water was her wall.
9 Cush and Egypt had limitless strength;
Put and the Libyans were among her allies.
10 Yet she went into captivity as an exile;
even her infants were smashed to pieces at the head of every street.
They cast lots for her nobility;
all her dignitaries were bound with chains.
11 You too will act like drunkards;
you will go into hiding;
you too will seek refuge from the enemy.
12 All your fortifications will be like fig trees with first-ripe fruit:
If they are shaken, their figs will fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Your warriors will be like women in your midst;
the gates of your land will be wide open to your enemies;
fire will consume the bars of your gates.
14 Draw yourselves water for a siege!
Strengthen your fortifications!
Trample the mud and tread the clay!
Make mud bricks to strengthen your walls!
15 There the fire will consume you;
the sword will cut you down;
it will devour you like the young locust would.
Multiply yourself like the young locust;
multiply yourself like the flying locust!
16 Increase your merchants more than the stars of heaven!
They are like the young locust that sheds its skin and flies away.
17 Your courtiers are like locusts,
your officials are like a swarm of locusts!
They encamp in the walls on a cold day,
yet when the sun rises, they fly away,
and no one knows where they are.
18 Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria.
Your officers are slumbering!
Your people are scattered like sheep on the mountains,
and there is no one to regather them.
19 Your destruction is like an incurable wound;
your demise is like a fatal injury.
All who hear what has happened to you will clap their hands for joy,
for no one ever escaped your endless cruelty!
Luke 19
1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2 Now a man named Zacchaeus was there; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 He was trying to get a look at Jesus, but being a short man he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, because Jesus was going to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, because I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down quickly and welcomed Jesus joyfully. 7 And when the people saw it, they all complained, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!” 9 Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham! 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
11 While the people were listening to these things, Jesus proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. 12 Therefore he said, “A nobleman went to a distant country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. 13 And he summoned ten of his slaves, gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Do business with these until I come back.’ 14 But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to be king over us!’ 15 When he returned after receiving the kingdom, he summoned these slaves to whom he had given the money. He wanted to know how much they had earned by trading. 16 So the first one came before him and said, ‘Sir, your mina has made ten minas more.’ 17 And the king said to him, ‘Well done, good slave! Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, you will have authority over ten cities.’ 18 Then the second one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has made five minas.’ 19 So the king said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’ 20 Then another slave came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina that I put away for safekeeping in a piece of cloth. 21 For I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You withdraw what you did not deposit and reap what you did not sow.’ 22 The king said to him, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! So you knew, did you, that I was a severe man, withdrawing what I didn’t deposit and reaping what I didn’t sow? 23 Why then didn’t you put my money in the bank, so that when I returned I could have collected it with interest?’ 24 And he said to his attendants, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has ten.’ 25 But they said to him, ‘Sir, he has ten minas already!’ 26 ‘I tell you that everyone who has will be given more, but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. 27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and slaughter them in front of me!’”
28 After Jesus had said this, he continued on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 Now when he approached Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30 telling them, “Go to the village ahead of you. When you enter it, you will find a colt tied there that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32 So those who were sent ahead found it exactly as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying that colt?” 34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.” 35 Then they brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt, and had Jesus get on it. 36 As he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 As he approached the road leading down from the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen: 38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 But some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if they keep silent, the very stones will cry out!”
41 Now when Jesus approached and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had only known on this day, even you, the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and surround you and close in on you from every side. 44 They will demolish you—you and your children within your walls—and they will not leave within you one stone on top of another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”
45 Then Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were selling things there, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of robbers!”
47 Jesus was teaching daily in the temple courts. The chief priests and the experts in the law and the prominent leaders among the people were seeking to assassinate him, 48 but they could not find a way to do it, for all the people hung on his words.
