Ezek. 5
5:1 “As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor. Shave off some of the hair from your head and your beard. Then take scales and divide up the hair you cut off. 2Burn a third of it in the fire inside the city when the days of your siege are completed. Take a third and slash it with a sword all around the city. Scatter a third to the wind, and I will unleash a sword behind them. 3But take a few strands of hair from those and tie them in the ends of your garment. 4Again, take more of them and throw them into the fire, and burn them up. From there a fire will spread to all the house of Israel.
5“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem; I placed her in the center of the nations with countries all around her. 6Then she defied my regulations and my statutes, becoming more wicked than the nations and the countries around her. Indeed, they have rejected my regulations, and they do not follow my statutes.
7“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you are more arrogant than the nations around you, you have not followed my statutes and have not carried out my regulations. You have not even carried out the regulations of the nations around you!
8“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I—even I—am against you, and I will execute judgment among you while the nations watch. 9I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again because of all your abominable practices. 10Therefore, fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors to the winds.
11“Therefore, as surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominable practices, I will withdraw; my eye will not pity you, nor will I spare you. 12A third of your people will die of plague or be overcome by the famine within you. A third of your people will fall by the sword surrounding you, and a third I will scatter to the winds. I will unleash a sword behind them. 13Then my anger will be fully vented; I will exhaust my rage on them, and I will be appeased. Then they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in my jealousy when I have fully vented my rage against them.
14“I will make you desolate and an object of scorn among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by. 15You will be an object of scorn and taunting, a prime example of destruction among the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and raging fury. I, the Lord, have spoken! 16I will shoot against them deadly, destructive arrows of famine, which I will shoot to destroy you. I will prolong a famine on you and will remove the bread supply. 17I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will take your children from you. Plague and bloodshed will overwhelm you, and I will bring a sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
(NET Bible)Ps. 67
67:1 For the music director, to be accompanied by stringed instruments; a psalm, a song.
May God show us his favor and bless us.
May he smile on us. (Selah)
2Then those living on earth will know what you are like;
all nations will know how you deliver your people.
3Let the nations thank you, O God.
Let all the nations thank you.
4Let foreigners rejoice and celebrate.
For you execute justice among the nations
and govern the people living on earth. (Selah)
5Let the nations thank you, O God.
Let all the nations thank you.
6The earth yields its crops.
May God, our God, bless us.
7May God bless us.
Then all the ends of the earth will give him the honor he deserves.
(NET Bible)1 Tim. 1:12–20
1:12 I am grateful to the one who has strengthened me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he considered me faithful in putting me into ministry, 13even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But I was treated with mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14and our Lord’s grace was abundant, bringing faith and love in Christ Jesus. 15This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them! 16But here is why I was treated with mercy: so that in me as the worst, Christ Jesus could demonstrate his utmost patience, as an example for those who are going to believe in him for eternal life. 17Now to the eternal King, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever! Amen.
18I put this charge before you, Timothy my child, in keeping with the prophecies once spoken about you, in order that with such encouragement you may fight the good fight. 19To do this you must hold firmly to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck in regard to the faith. 20Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
(NET Bible)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.