Nah. 3
3:1 Woe to the city guilty of bloodshed!
She is full of lies;
she is filled with plunder;
she has hoarded her spoil!
2The chariot drivers will crack their whips;
the chariot wheels will shake the ground.
The chariot horses will gallop;
the war chariots will bolt forward!
3The 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.
4Because 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.
6I will pelt you with filth;
I will treat you with contempt;
I will make you a public spectacle.
7Everyone 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!”
8You 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.
9Cush and Egypt had limitless strength;
Put and the Libyans were among her allies.
10Yet 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.
11You too will act like drunkards;
you will go into hiding;
you too will seek refuge from the enemy.
12All 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.
13Your 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.
14Draw yourselves water for a siege!
Strengthen your fortifications!
Trample the mud and tread the clay!
Make mud bricks to strengthen your walls!
15There 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!
16Increase your merchants more than the stars of heaven!
They are like the young locust that sheds its skin and flies away.
17Your 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.
18Your 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.
19Your 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!
(NET Bible)Ps. 115
115:1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
but to your name bring honor,
for the sake of your loyal love and faithfulness.
2Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
3Our God is in heaven.
He does whatever he pleases.
4Their idols are made of silver and gold—
they are man-made.
5They have mouths, but cannot speak;
eyes, but cannot see;
6ears, but cannot hear;
noses, but cannot smell;
7hands, but cannot touch;
feet, but cannot walk.
They cannot even clear their throats.
8Those who make them will end up like them,
as will everyone who trusts in them.
9O Israel, trust in the Lord.
He is their deliverer and protector.
10O family of Aaron, trust in the Lord.
He is their deliverer and protector.
11You loyal followers of the Lord, trust in the Lord.
He is their deliverer and protector.
12The Lord takes notice of us; he will bless—
he will bless the family of Israel,
he will bless the family of Aaron.
13He will bless his loyal followers,
both young and old.
14May he increase your numbers,
yours and your children’s.
15May you be blessed by the Lord,
the Creator of heaven and earth.
16The heavens belong to the Lord,
but the earth he has given to mankind.
17The dead do not praise the Lord,
nor do any of those who descend into the silence of death.
18But we will praise the Lord
now and forevermore.
Praise the Lord!
(NET Bible)Luke 19:45–20:8
19:45 Then Jesus entered the temple courts and began to drive out those who were selling things there, 46saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of robbers!”
47Jesus 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, 48but they could not find a way to do it, for all the people hung on his words.
20:1 Now one day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple courts and proclaiming the gospel, the chief priests and the experts in the law with the elders came up 2and said to him, “Tell us: By what authority are you doing these things? Or who is it who gave you this authority?” 3He answered them, “I will also ask you a question, and you tell me: 4John’s baptism—was it from heaven or from people?” 5So they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 6But if we say, ‘From people,’ all the people will stone us because they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7So they replied that they did not know where it came from. 8Then Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by whose authority I do these things.”
(NET Bible)On April 28, thus ten days later [a er Worms], [Luther] wrote his well-known letter to Emperor Charles. … “But I, who was always humble and zealously ready to do and to suffer all that in me lay, could not obtain this one concession, this most Christian prayer, that the Word of God should remain free and unbound, and that I should submit my books to your Sacred Majesty and the Estates of the Empire on that condition, nor that in yielding to the decree of a Council I should not submit to anything contrary to the gospel of God, nor should they make any such decree. is was the crux of the whole controversy.” Luther then continues: “For God, the searcher of hearts, is my witness that I am most ready to submit to and obey your Majesty either in life or in death, to glory or to shame, for gain or for loss. As I have o ered myself, thus I do now, excepting nothing save the Word of God, in which not only (as Christ teaches in Matthew 4) does man live, but which also the angels of Christ desire to see (I Peter 1). As it is above all things it ought to be held free and unbound in all, as Paul teaches (II Timothy 2:9). It ought not to depend on human judgment nor to yield to the opinion of men, no matter how great, how numerous, how learned, and how holy they are. Thus does St. Paul in Galatians. I dare to exclaim with emphasis, ‘If we or an angel from heaven teach you another gospel, let him be anathema,’ and David says, ‘Put not your trust in princes, in the sons of men, in whom is no safety,’ Ps. 146:3. Nor is anyone able to trust in himself, as Solomon says, ‘He is a fool who trusts in his heart’; Prov. 28:26, and Jeremiah 17, ‘Cursed is he who trusteth in man’ … For to trust in man in matters of salvation is to give to the creature the glory due to the creator alone.” (20–21)
–Johann Michael Reu, Luther on the Scriptures
This daily Bible reading guide, Reading the Word of God, was conceived and prepared as a result of the ongoing discussions between representatives of three church bodies: Lutheran Church—Canada (LCC), The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). The following individuals have represented their church bodies and approved this introduction and the reading guide: LCC: President Robert Bugbee; NALC: Bishop John Bradosky, Revs. Mark Chavez, James Nestingen, and David Wendel; LCMS: Revs. Albert Collver, Joel Lehenbauer, John Pless, and Larry Vogel.