Ezek. 7
7:1 The Lord’s message came to me: 2“You, son of man—this is what the Sovereign Lord says to the land of Israel: An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land! 3The end is now upon you, and I will release my anger against you. I will judge you according to your behavior; I will hold you accountable for all your abominable practices. 4My eye will not pity you; I will not spare you. For I will hold you responsible for your behavior, and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. Then you will know that I am the Lord!
5“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: A disaster—a one-of-a-kind disaster—is coming! 6An end comes—the end comes! It has awakened against you! Look, it is coming! 7Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains. 8Soon now I will pour out my rage on you; I will fully vent my anger against you. I will judge you according to your behavior. I will hold you accountable for all your abominable practices. 9My eye will not pity you; I will not spare you. For your behavior I will hold you accountable, and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. Then you will know that it is I, the Lord, who is striking you.
10“Look, the day! Look, it is coming! Doom has gone out! The staff has budded, pride has blossomed! 11Violence has grown into a staff that supports wickedness. Not one of them will be left—not from their crowd, not from their wealth, not from their prominence. 12The time has come; the day has struck! The customer should not rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for divine wrath comes against their whole crowd. 13The customer will no longer pay the seller while both parties are alive, for the vision against their whole crowd will not be revoked. Each person, for his iniquity, will fail to preserve his life.
14“They have blown the trumpet and everyone is ready, but no one goes to battle, because my anger is against their whole crowd. 15The sword is outside; pestilence and famine are inside the house. Whoever is in the open field will die by the sword, and famine and pestilence will consume everyone in the city. 16Their survivors will escape to the mountains and become like doves of the valleys; all of them will moan—each one for his iniquity. 17All their hands will hang limp; their knees will be wet with urine. 18They will wear sackcloth, terror will cover them; shame will be on all their faces, and all their heads will be shaved bald. 19They will discard their silver in the streets, and their gold will be treated like filth. Their silver and gold will not be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord’s fury. They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs because their wealth was the obstacle leading to their iniquity. 20They rendered the beauty of his ornaments into pride, and with it they made their abominable images—their detestable idols. Therefore I will render it filthy to them. 21I will give it to foreigners as loot, to the world’s wicked ones as plunder, and they will desecrate it. 22I will turn my face away from them, and they will desecrate my treasured place. Vandals will enter it and desecrate it. 23(Make the chain, because the land is full of murder and the city is full of violence.) 24I will bring the most wicked of the nations, and they will take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong, and their sanctuaries will be desecrated. 25Terror is coming! They will seek peace, but find none. 26Disaster after disaster will come, and one rumor after another. They will seek a vision from a prophet; priestly instruction will disappear, along with counsel from the elders. 27The king will mourn and the prince will be clothed with shuddering; the hands of the people of the land will tremble. Based on their behavior I will deal with them, and by their standard of justice I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord!”
(NET Bible)Ps. 69
69:1 For the music director, according to the tune of “Lilies”; by David.
Deliver me, O God,
for the water has reached my neck.
2I sink into the deep mire
where there is no solid ground;
I am in deep water,
and the current overpowers me.
3I am exhausted from shouting for help.
My throat is sore;
my eyes grow tired from looking for my God.
4Those who hate me without cause
are more numerous than the hairs of my head.
Those who want to destroy me,
my enemies for no reason,
outnumber me.
They make me repay what I did not steal.
5O God, you are aware of my foolish sins;
my guilt is not hidden from you.
6Let none who rely on you be disgraced because of me,
O Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Let none who seek you be ashamed because of me,
O God of Israel.
7For I suffer humiliation for your sake
and am thoroughly disgraced.
8My own brothers treat me like a stranger;
they act as if I were a foreigner.
9Certainly zeal for your house consumes me;
I endure the insults of those who insult you.
10I weep and refrain from eating food,
which causes others to insult me.
11I wear sackcloth
and they ridicule me.
12Those who sit at the city gate gossip about me;
drunkards mock me in their songs.
13O Lord, may you hear my prayer and be favorably disposed to me.
O God, because of your great loyal love,
answer me with your faithful deliverance.
14Rescue me from the mud. Don’t let me sink.
Deliver me from those who hate me,
from the deep water.
15Don’t let the current overpower me.
Don’t let the deep swallow me up.
Don’t let the Pit devour me.
16Answer me, O Lord, for your loyal love is good.
Because of your great compassion, turn toward me.
17Do not ignore your servant,
for I am in trouble. Answer me right away.
18Come near me and redeem me.
Because of my enemies, rescue me.
19You know how I am insulted, humiliated, and disgraced;
you can see all my enemies.
20Their insults are painful and make me lose heart;
I look for sympathy, but receive none,
for comforters, but find none.
21They put bitter poison into my food,
and to quench my thirst they give me vinegar to drink.
22May their dining table become a trap before them.
May it be a snare for that group of friends.
23May their eyes be blinded.
Make them shake violently.
24Pour out your judgment on them.
May your raging anger overtake them.
25May their camp become desolate,
their tents uninhabited.
26For they harass the one whom you discipline;
they spread the news about the suffering of those whom you punish.
27Hold them accountable for all their sins.
Do not vindicate them.
28May their names be deleted from the scroll of the living.
Do not let their names be listed with the godly.
29I am oppressed and suffering.
O God, deliver and protect me.
30I will sing praises to God’s name.
I will magnify him as I give him thanks.
31That will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull
with horns and hooves.
32The oppressed look on—let them rejoice.
You who seek God, may you be encouraged.
33For the Lord listens to the needy;
he does not despise his captive people.
34Let the heavens and the earth praise him,
along with the seas and everything that swims in them.
35For God will deliver Zion
and rebuild the cities of Judah,
and his people will again live in them and possess Zion.
36The descendants of his servants will inherit it,
and those who are loyal to him will live in it.
(NET Bible)1 Tim. 3:1–13
3:1 This saying is trustworthy: “If someone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a good work.” 2The overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, an able teacher, 3not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not contentious, free from the love of money. 4He must manage his own household well and keep his children in control without losing his dignity. 5But if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for the church of God? 6He must not be a recent convert, or he may become arrogant and fall into the punishment that the devil will exact. 7And he must be well thought of by those outside the faith, so that he may not fall into disgrace and be caught by the devil’s trap.
8Deacons likewise must be dignified, not two-faced, not given to excessive drinking, not greedy for gain, 9holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10And these also must be tested first and then let them serve as deacons if they are found blameless. 11Likewise also their wives must be dignified, not slanderous, temperate, faithful in every respect. 12Deacons must be husbands of one wife and good managers of their children and their own households. 13For those who have served well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
(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.