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Jonah 3

3:1 The Lord’s message came to Jonah a second time, 2“Go immediately to Nineveh, that large city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, in keeping with the Lord’s message. Now Nineveh was an enormous city—it required three days to walk through it! 4Jonah began to enter the city by going one day’s walk, announcing, “At the end of 40 days, Nineveh will be overthrown!”

5The people of Nineveh believed in God, and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. 6When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes. 7He issued a proclamation and said, “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. 8Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly to God, and everyone must turn from their evil way of living and from the violence that they do. 9Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die.” 10When God saw their actions—that they turned from their evil way of living—God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and did not destroy them.

(NET Bible)

Ps. 64

64:1 For the music director, a psalm of David.

Listen to me, O God, as I offer my lament!

Protect my life from the enemy’s terrifying attacks.

2Hide me from the plots of evil men,

from the crowd of evildoers.

3They sharpen their tongues like swords;

they aim their arrows, a slanderous charge,

4in order to shoot down the innocent in secluded places.

They shoot at him suddenly and are unafraid of retaliation.

5They encourage one another to carry out their evil deed.

They plan how to hide snares

and boast, “Who will see them?”

6They devise unjust schemes;

they disguise a well-conceived plot.

Man’s inner thoughts cannot be discovered.

7But God will shoot at them;

suddenly they will be wounded by an arrow.

8Their slander will bring about their demise.

All who see them will shudder,

9and all people will fear.

They will proclaim what God has done,

and reflect on his deeds.

10The godly will rejoice in the Lord

and take shelter in him.

All the morally upright will boast.

(NET Bible)

Rom. 1:1–17

1:1 From Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. 2This gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, 3concerning his Son who was a descendant of David with reference to the flesh, 4who was appointed the Son-of-God-in-power according to the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. 5Through him we have received grace and our apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name. 6You also are among them, called to belong to Jesus Christ. 7To all those loved by God in Rome, called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

8First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world. 9For God, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of his Son, is my witness that I continually remember you, 10and I always ask in my prayers if, perhaps now at last, I may succeed in visiting you according to the will of God. 11For I long to see you, so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, 12that is, that we may be mutually comforted by one another’s faith, both yours and mine. 13I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I often intended to come to you (and was prevented until now), so that I may have some fruit even among you, just as I already have among the rest of the Gentiles. 14I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15Thus I am eager also to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome.

16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith, just as it is written, “The righteous by faith will live.”

(NET Bible)

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.

In his exposition of the rst and the second chapters of St. John, which was written during 1537 and 1538, Luther discusses the questions as to how this account of the cleansing of the Temple is related to that given by the Synoptists. He says: “The first question is as to how the two evangelists, Matthew and John, agree with each other; for Matthew states that it happened on Palm Sunday when the Lord entered Jerusalem, while here in John it is placed some- where in the Easter [Passover] season, soon after the baptism of Christ, just as the miracle in which Christ turned water into wine took place about Easter, after which He journeyed to Capernaum. For He was baptized at Epiphany and he may easily have tarried a short time in Capernaum until Easter and began to preach and did what John here narrates about Easter. But these are questions that remain questions which I will not solve and that do not give me much concern, only there are people so sly and keen that they raise all kinds of questions for which they want to have answers. If one, however, has a correct understanding of Scripture and possesses the true statement of our faith that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has suffered and died for us, it will not be a serious defect if we are not able to answer them. The evangelists do not observe the same order, and what one places first another on occasion places last, just as Mark places the account of this event on the day following Palm Sunday. It is quite possible that the Lord did this more than once, and that John describes the first time and Matthew the second. Let that be as it may, it was before or after; it happened once or twice, in no case does it detract anything from our faith.” (45–46)

–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.

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