Message Bible Daily

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Message Bible Daily Reading - Old/New Testament (MSG)

Old/New Testament Reading for Wednesday November 16, 2016 (MSG)

Posted: 15 Nov 2016 09:00 PM PST

Ezekiel 5-7

A Jealous God, Not to Be Trifled With

5 ^1-2"Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a straight razor, shaving your head and your beard. Then, using a set of balancing scales, divide the hair into thirds. When the days of the siege are over, take one-third of the hair and burn it inside the city. Take another third, chop it into bits with the sword and sprinkle it around the city. The final third you'll throw to the wind. Then I'll go after them with a sword.

^3-4"Retrieve a few of the hairs and slip them into your pocket. Take some of them and throw them into the fire—burn them up. From them, fire will spread to the whole family of Israel.

^5-6"This is what God, the Master, says: This means Jerusalem. I set her at the center of the world, all the nations ranged around her. But she rebelled against my laws and ordinances, rebelled far worse than the nations ranged around her—sheer wickedness!—refused my guidance, ignored my directions.

⁷"Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: You've been more headstrong and willful than any of the nations around you, refusing my guidance, ignoring my directions. You've sunk to the gutter level of those around you.

^8-10"Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: I'm setting myself against you—yes, against you, Jerusalem. I'm going to punish you in full sight of the nations. Because of your disgusting no-god idols, I'm going to do something to you that I've never done before and will never do again: turn families into cannibals—parents eating children, children eating parents! Punishment indeed. And whoever's left over I'll throw to the winds.

^11-12"Therefore, as sure as I am the living God—Decree of God, the Master—because you've polluted my Sanctuary with your obscenities and disgusting no-god idols, I'm pulling out. Not an ounce of pity will I show you. A third of your people will die of either disease or hunger inside the city, a third will be killed outside the city, and a third will be thrown to the winds and chased by killers.

¹³"Only then will I calm down and let my anger cool. Then you'll know that I was serious about this all along, that I'm a jealous God and not to be trifled with.

^14-15"When I get done with you, you'll be a pile of rubble. Nations who walk by will make coarse jokes. When I finish my angry punishment and searing rebukes, you'll be reduced to an object of ridicule and mockery, turned into a horror story circulating among the surrounding nations. I, God, have spoken.

^16-17"When I shoot my lethal famine arrows at you, I'll shoot to kill. Then I'll step up the famine and cut off food supplies. Famine and more famine—and then I'll send in the wild animals to finish off your children. Epidemic disease, unrestrained murder, death—and I will have sent it! I, God, have spoken."

Turn Israel into Wasteland

6 ^1-7Then the Word of God came to me: "Son of man, now turn and face the mountains of Israel and preach against them: 'O Mountains of Israel, listen to the Message of God, the Master. God, the Master, speaks to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I'm about to destroy your sacred god and goddess shrines. I'll level your altars, bust up your sun-god pillars, and kill your people as they bow down to your no-god idols. I'll stack the dead bodies of Israelites in front of your idols and then scatter your bones around your shrines. Every place where you've lived, the towns will be torn down and the pagan shrines demolished—altars busted up, idols smashed, all your custom-made sun-god pillars in ruins. Corpses everywhere you look! Then you'll know that I am God.

^8-10"'But I'll let a few escape the killing as you are scattered through other lands and nations. In the foreign countries where they're taken as prisoners of war, they'll remember me. They'll realize how devastated I was by their betrayals, by their voracious lust for gratifying themselves in their idolatries. They'll be disgusted with their evil ways, disgusting to God in the way they've lived. They'll know that I am God. They'll know that my judgment against them was no empty threat.

^11-14"'This is what God, the Master, says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, yell out, "No, no, no!" because of all the evil obscenities rife in Israel. They're going to be killed, dying of hunger, dying of disease—death everywhere you look, people dropping like flies, people far away dying, people nearby dying, and whoever's left in the city starving to death. Why? Because I'm angry, furiously angry. They'll realize that I am God when they see their people's corpses strewn over and around all their ruined sex-and-religion shrines on the bare hills and in the lush fertility groves, in all the places where they indulged their sensual rites. I'll bring my hand down hard on them, demolish the country wherever they live, turn it into wasteland from one end to the other, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they'll know that I am God!'"

Fate Has Caught Up with You

7 ^1-4God's Word came to me, saying, "You, son of man—God, the Master, has this Message for the land of Israel:

"'Endtime.
The end of business as usual for everyone.
It's all over. The end is upon you.
I've launched my anger against you.
I've issued my verdict on the way you live.
I'll make you pay for your disgusting obscenities.
I won't look the other way,
I won't feel sorry for you.
I'll make you pay for the way you've lived:
Your disgusting obscenities will boomerang on you,
and you'll realize that I am God.'

^5-9"I, God, the Master, say:
'Disaster after disaster! Look, it comes!
Endtime—
the end comes.
The end is ripe. Watch out, it's coming!
This is your fate, you who live in this land.
Time's up.
It's zero hour.
No dragging of feet now,
no bargaining for more time.
Soon now I'll pour my wrath on you,
pay out my anger against you,
Render my verdict on the way you've lived,
make you pay for your disgusting obscenities.
I won't look the other way,
I won't feel sorry for you.
I'll make you pay for the way you've lived.
Your disgusting obscenities will boomerang on you.
Then you'll realize
that it is I, God, who have hit you.

^10-13"'Judgment Day!
Fate has caught up with you.
The scepter outsized and pretentious,
pride bursting all bounds,
Violence strutting,
brandishing the evil scepter.
But there's nothing to them,
and nothing will be left of them.
Time's up.
Countdown: five, four, three, two . . .
Buyer, don't crow; seller, don't worry:
Judgment wrath has turned the world topsy-turvy.
The bottom has dropped out of buying and selling.
It will never be the same again.
But don't fantasize an upturn in the market.
The country is bankrupt because of its sins,
and it's not going to get any better.

^14-16"'The trumpet signals the call to battle:
"Present arms!"
But no one marches into battle.
My wrath has them paralyzed!
On the open roads you're killed,
or else you go home and die of hunger and disease.
Either get murdered out in the country
or die of sickness or hunger in town.
Survivors run for the hills.
They moan like doves in the valleys,
Each one moaning
for his own sins.

^17-18"'Every hand hangs limp,
every knee turns to rubber.
They dress in rough burlap—
sorry scarecrows,
Shifty and shamefaced,
with their heads shaved bald.

^19-27"'They throw their money into the gutters.
Their hard-earned cash stinks like garbage.
They find that it won't buy a thing
they either want or need on Judgment Day.
They tripped on money
and fell into sin.
Proud and pretentious with their jewels,
they deck out their vile and vulgar no-gods in finery.
I'll make those god-obscenities a stench in their nostrils.
I'll give away their religious junk—
strangers will pick it up for free,
the godless spit on it and make jokes.
I'll turn my face so I won't have to look
as my treasured place and people are violated,
As violent strangers walk in
and desecrate place and people—
A bloody massacre,
as crime and violence fill the city.
I'll bring in the dregs of humanity
to move into their houses.
I'll put a stop to the boasting and strutting
of the high-and-mighty,
And see to it that there'll be nothing holy
left in their holy places.
Catastrophe descends. They look for peace,
but there's no peace to be found—
Disaster on the heels of disaster,
one rumor after another.
They clamor for the prophet to tell them what's up,
but nobody knows anything.
Priests don't have a clue;
the elders don't know what to say.
The king holds his head in despair;
the prince is devastated.
The common people are paralyzed.
Gripped by fear, they can't move.
I'll deal with them where they are,
judge them on their terms.
They'll know that I am God.'"

The Message (MSG)

Hebrews 12

Discipline in a Long-Distance Race

12 ^1-3Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

^4-11In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed! So don't feel sorry for yourselves. Or have you forgotten how good parents treat children, and that God regards you as his children?

My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline,
but don't be crushed by it either.
It's the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects.

God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best. At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

^12-13So don't sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!

^14-17Work at getting along with each other and with God. Otherwise you'll never get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure no one gets left out of God's generosity. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time. Watch out for the Esau syndrome: trading away God's lifelong gift in order to satisfy a short-term appetite. You well know how Esau later regretted that impulsive act and wanted God's blessing—but by then it was too late, tears or no tears.

An Unshakable Kingdom

^18-21Unlike your ancestors, you didn't come to Mount Sinai—all that volcanic blaze and earthshaking rumble—to hear God speak. The earsplitting words and soul-shaking message terrified them and they begged him to stop. When they heard the words—"If an animal touches the Mountain, it's as good as dead"—they were afraid to move. Even Moses was terrified.

^22-24No, that's not your experience at all. You've come to Mount Zion, the city where the living God resides. The invisible Jerusalem is populated by throngs of festive angels and Christian citizens. It is the city where God is Judge, with judgments that make us just. You've come to Jesus, who presents us with a new covenant, a fresh charter from God. He is the Mediator of this covenant. The murder of Jesus, unlike Abel's—a homicide that cried out for vengeance—became a proclamation of grace.

^25-27So don't turn a deaf ear to these gracious words. If those who ignored earthly warnings didn't get away with it, what will happen to us if we turn our backs on heavenly warnings? His voice that time shook the earth to its foundations; this time—he's told us this quite plainly—he'll also rock the heavens: "One last shaking, from top to bottom, stem to stern." The phrase "one last shaking" means a thorough housecleaning, getting rid of all the historical and religious junk so that the unshakable essentials stand clear and uncluttered.

^28-29Do you see what we've got? An unshakable kingdom! And do you see how thankful we must be? Not only thankful, but brimming with worship, deeply reverent before God. For God is not an indifferent bystander. He's actively cleaning house, torching all that needs to burn, and he won't quit until it's all cleansed. God himself is Fire!

The Message (MSG)

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Message Bible Daily Reading - Old/New Testament (MSG)

Old/New Testament Reading for Tuesday November 15, 2016 (MSG)

Posted: 14 Nov 2016 09:00 PM PST

Ezekiel 3-4

Warn These People

3 He told me, "Son of man, eat what you see. Eat this book. Then go and speak to the family of Israel."

^2-3As I opened my mouth, he gave me the scroll to eat, saying, "Son of man, eat this book that I am giving you. Make a full meal of it!"

So I ate it. It tasted so good—just like honey.

^4-6Then he told me, "Son of man, go to the family of Israel and speak my Message. Look, I'm not sending you to a people who speak a hard-to-learn language with words you can hardly pronounce. If I had sent you to such people, their ears would have perked up and they would have listened immediately.

^7-9"But it won't work that way with the family of Israel. They won't listen to you because they won't listen to me. They are, as I said, a hard case, hardened in their sin. But I'll make you as hard in your way as they are in theirs. I'll make your face as hard as rock, harder than granite. Don't let them intimidate you. Don't be afraid of them, even though they're a bunch of rebels."

^10-11Then he said, "Son of man, get all these words that I'm giving you inside you. Listen to them obediently. Make them your own. And now go. Go to the exiles, your people, and speak. Tell them, 'This is the Message of God, the Master.' Speak your piece, whether they listen or not."

^12-13Then the Spirit picked me up. Behind me I heard a great commotion—"Blessed be the Glory of God in his Sanctuary!"—the wings of the living creatures beating against each other, the whirling wheels, the rumble of a great earthquake.

^14-15The Spirit lifted me and took me away. I went bitterly and angrily. I didn't want to go. But God had me in his grip. I arrived among the exiles who lived near the Kebar River at Tel Aviv. I came to where they were living and sat there for seven days, appalled.

¹⁶At the end of the seven days, I received this Message from God:

^17-19"Son of man, I've made you a watchman for the family of Israel. Whenever you hear me say something, warn them for me. If I say to the wicked, 'You are going to die,' and you don't sound the alarm warning them that it's a matter of life or death, they will die and it will be your fault. I'll hold you responsible. But if you warn the wicked and they keep right on sinning anyway, they'll most certainly die for their sin, but you won't die. You'll have saved your life.

^20-21"And if the righteous turn back from living righteously and take up with evil when I step in and put them in a hard place, they'll die. If you haven't warned them, they'll die because of their sins, and none of the right things they've done will count for anything—and I'll hold you responsible. But if you warn these righteous people not to sin and they listen to you, they'll live because they took the warning—and again, you'll have saved your life."

²²God grabbed me by the shoulder and said, "Get up. Go out on the plain. I want to talk with you."

²³So I got up and went out on the plain. I couldn't believe my eyes: the Glory of God! Right there! It was like the Glory I had seen at the Kebar River. I fell to the ground, prostrate.

^24-26Then the Spirit entered me and put me on my feet. He said, "Go home and shut the door behind you." And then something odd: "Son of man: They'll tie you hand and foot with ropes so you can't leave the house. I'll make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so you won't be able to talk and tell the people what they're doing wrong, even though they are a bunch of rebels.

²⁷"But then when the time is ripe, I'll free your tongue and you'll say, 'This is what God, the Master, says: . . .' From then on it's up to them. They can listen or not listen, whichever they like. They are a bunch of rebels!"

This Is What Sin Does

4 ^1-3"Now, son of man, take a brick and place it before you. Draw a picture of the city Jerusalem on it. Then make a model of a military siege against the brick: Build siege walls, construct a ramp, set up army camps, lay in battering rams around it. Then get an iron skillet and place it upright between you and the city—an iron wall. Face the model: The city shall be under siege and you shall be the besieger. This is a sign to the family of Israel.

^4-5"Next lie on your left side and place the sin of the family of Israel on yourself. You will bear their sin for as many days as you lie on your side. The number of days you bear their sin will match the number of years of their sin, namely, 390. For 390 days you will bear the sin of the family of Israel.

^6-7"Then, after you have done this, turn over and lie down on your right side and bear the sin of the family of Judah. Your assignment this time is to lie there for forty days, a day for each year of their sin. Look straight at the siege of Jerusalem. Roll up your sleeve, shake your bare arm, and preach against her.

⁸"I will tie you up with ropes, tie you so you can't move or turn over until you have finished the days of the siege.

^9-12"Next I want you to take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, dried millet and spelt, and mix them in a bowl to make a flat bread. This is your food ration for the 390 days you lie on your side. Measure out about half a pound for each day and eat it on schedule. Also measure out your daily ration of about a pint of water and drink it on schedule. Eat the bread as you would a muffin. Bake the muffins out in the open where everyone can see you, using dried human dung for fuel."

¹³God said, "This is what the people of Israel are going to do: Among the pagan nations where I will drive them, they will eat foods that are strictly taboo to a holy people."

¹⁴I said, "God, my Master! Never! I've never contaminated myself with food like that. Since my youth I've never eaten anything forbidden by law, nothing found dead or violated by wild animals. I've never taken a single bite of forbidden food."

¹⁵"All right," he said. "I'll let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human dung."

^16-17Then he said to me, "Son of man, I'm going to cut off all food from Jerusalem. The people will live on starvation rations, worrying where the next meal's coming from, scrounging for the next drink of water. Famine conditions. People will look at one another, see nothing but skin and bones, and shake their heads. This is what sin does."

The Message (MSG)

Hebrews 11:20-40

²⁰By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau.

²¹By an act of faith, Jacob on his deathbed blessed each of Joseph's sons in turn, blessing them with God's blessing, not his own—as he bowed worshipfully upon his staff.

²²By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.

²³By an act of faith, Moses' parents hid him away for three months after his birth. They saw the child's beauty, and they braved the king's decree.

^24-28By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house. He chose a hard life with God's people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors. He valued suffering in the Messiah's camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead, anticipating the payoff. By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king's blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going. By an act of faith, he kept the Passover Feast and sprinkled Passover blood on each house so that the destroyer of the firstborn wouldn't touch them.

²⁹By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned.

³⁰By faith, the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, and the walls fell flat.

³¹By an act of faith, Rahab, the Jericho harlot, welcomed the spies and escaped the destruction that came on those who refused to trust God.

^32-38I could go on and on, but I've run out of time. There are so many more—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. . . . Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn't deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.

^39-40Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.

The Message (MSG)

Monday, November 14, 2016

Message Bible Daily Reading - Old/New Testament (MSG)

Old/New Testament Reading for Monday November 14, 2016 (MSG)

Posted: 13 Nov 2016 09:00 PM PST

Ezekiel 1-2

Wheels Within Wheels, Like a Gyroscope

1 When I was thirty years of age, I was living with the exiles on the Kebar River. On the fifth day of the fourth month, the sky opened up and I saw visions of God.

^2-3(It was the fifth day of the month in the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin that God's Word came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, on the banks of the Kebar River in the country of Babylon. God's hand came upon him that day.)

^4-9I looked: I saw an immense dust storm come from the north, an immense cloud with lightning flashing from it, a huge ball of fire glowing like bronze. Within the fire were what looked like four creatures vibrant with life. Each had the form of a human being, but each also had four faces and four wings. Their legs were as sturdy and straight as columns, but their feet were hoofed like those of a calf and sparkled from the fire like burnished bronze. On all four sides under their wings they had human hands. All four had both faces and wings, with the wings touching one another. They turned neither one way nor the other; they went straight forward.

^10-12Their faces looked like this: In front a human face, on the right side the face of a lion, on the left the face of an ox, and in back the face of an eagle. So much for the faces. The wings were spread out with the tips of one pair touching the creature on either side; the other pair of wings covered its body. Each creature went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit went, they went. They didn't turn as they went.

^13-14The four creatures looked like a blazing fire, or like fiery torches. Tongues of fire shot back and forth between the creatures, and out of the fire, bolts of lightning. The creatures flashed back and forth like strikes of lightning.

^15-16As I watched the four creatures, I saw something that looked like a wheel on the ground beside each of the four-faced creatures. This is what the wheels looked like: They were identical wheels, sparkling like diamonds in the sun. It looked like they were wheels within wheels, like a gyroscope.

^17-21They went in any one of the four directions they faced, but straight, not veering off. The rims were immense, circled with eyes. When the living creatures went, the wheels went; when the living creatures lifted off, the wheels lifted off. Wherever the spirit went, they went, the wheels sticking right with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When the creatures went, the wheels went; when the creatures stopped, the wheels stopped; when the creatures lifted off, the wheels lifted off, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

^22-24Over the heads of the living creatures was something like a dome, shimmering like a sky full of cut glass, vaulted over their heads. Under the dome one set of wings was extended toward the others, with another set of wings covering their bodies. When they moved I heard their wings—it was like the roar of a great waterfall, like the voice of The Strong God, like the noise of a battlefield. When they stopped, they folded their wings.

^25-28And then, as they stood with folded wings, there was a voice from above the dome over their heads. Above the dome there was something that looked like a throne, sky-blue like a sapphire, with a humanlike figure towering above the throne. From what I could see, from the waist up he looked like burnished bronze and from the waist down like a blazing fire. Brightness everywhere! The way a rainbow springs out of the sky on a rainy day—that's what it was like. It turned out to be the Glory of God!

When I saw all this, I fell to my knees, my face to the ground. Then I heard a voice.

2 It said, "Son of man, stand up. I have something to say to you."

²The moment I heard the voice, the Spirit entered me and put me on my feet. As he spoke to me, I listened.

^3-7He said, "Son of man, I'm sending you to the family of Israel, a rebellious nation if there ever was one. They and their ancestors have fomented rebellion right up to the present. They're a hard case, these people to whom I'm sending you—hardened in their sin. Tell them, 'This is the Message of God, the Master.' They are a defiant bunch. Whether or not they listen, at least they'll know that a prophet's been here. But don't be afraid of them, son of man, and don't be afraid of anything they say. Don't be afraid when living among them is like stepping on thorns or finding scorpions in your bed. Don't be afraid of their mean words or their hard looks. They're a bunch of rebels. Your job is to speak to them. Whether they listen is not your concern. They're hardened rebels.

⁸"Only take care, son of man, that you don't rebel like these rebels. Open your mouth and eat what I give you."

^9-10When I looked he had his hand stretched out to me, and in the hand a book, a scroll. He unrolled the scroll. On both sides, front and back, were written lamentations and mourning and doom.

The Message (MSG)

Hebrews 11:1-19

Faith in What We Don't See

11 ^1-2The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.

³By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.

⁴By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That's what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.

^5-6By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. "They looked all over and couldn't find him because God had taken him." We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken "he pleased God." It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.

⁷By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn't see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.

^8-10By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God's call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

^11-12By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That's how it happened that from one man's dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.

^13-16Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

^17-19By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God. Acting in faith, he was as ready to return the promised son, his only son, as he had been to receive him—and this after he had already been told, "Your descendants shall come from Isaac." Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead. In a sense, that's what happened when he received Isaac back, alive from off the altar.

The Message (MSG)

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Message Bible Daily Reading - Old/New Testament (MSG)

Old/New Testament Reading for Sunday November 13, 2016 (MSG)

Posted: 12 Nov 2016 09:00 PM PST

Lamentations 3-5

God Locked Me Up in Deep Darkness

3 ^1-3I'm the man who has seen trouble,
trouble coming from the lash of God's anger.
He took me by the hand and walked me
into pitch-black darkness.
Yes, he's given me the back of his hand
over and over and over again.

^4-6He turned me into a scarecrow
of skin and bones, then broke the bones.
He hemmed me in, ganged up on me,
poured on the trouble and hard times.
He locked me up in deep darkness,
like a corpse nailed inside a coffin.

^7-9He shuts me in so I'll never get out,
manacles my hands, shackles my feet.
Even when I cry out and plead for help,
he locks up my prayers and throws away the key.
He sets up blockades with quarried limestone.
He's got me cornered.

^10-12He's a prowling bear tracking me down,
a lion in hiding ready to pounce.
He knocked me from the path and ripped me to pieces.
When he finished, there was nothing left of me.
He took out his bow and arrows
and used me for target practice.

^13-15He shot me in the stomach
with arrows from his quiver.
Everyone took me for a joke,
made me the butt of their mocking ballads.
He forced rotten, stinking food down my throat,
bloated me with vile drinks.

^16-18He ground my face into the gravel.
He pounded me into the mud.
I gave up on life altogether.
I've forgotten what the good life is like.
I said to myself, "This is it. I'm finished.
God is a lost cause."

It's a Good Thing to Hope for Help from God

^19-21I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there's one other thing I remember,
and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

^22-24God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He's all I've got left.

^25-27God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
to the woman who diligently seeks.
It's a good thing to quietly hope,
quietly hope for help from God.
It's a good thing when you're young
to stick it out through the hard times.

^28-30When life is heavy and hard to take,
go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions:
Wait for hope to appear.
Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face.
The "worst" is never the worst.

^31-33Why? Because the Master won't ever
walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.
He takes no pleasure in making life hard,
in throwing roadblocks in the way:

^34-36Stomping down hard
on luckless prisoners,
Refusing justice to victims
in the court of High God,
Tampering with evidence—
the Master does not approve of such things.

God Speaks Both Good Things and Hard Things into Being

^37-39Who do you think "spoke and it happened"?
It's the Master who gives such orders.
Doesn't the High God speak everything,
good things and hard things alike, into being?
And why would anyone gifted with life
complain when punished for sin?

^40-42Let's take a good look at the way we're living
and reorder our lives under God.
Let's lift our hearts and hands at one and the same time,
praying to God in heaven:
"We've been contrary and willful,
and you haven't forgiven.

^43-45"You lost your temper with us, holding nothing back.
You chased us and cut us down without mercy.
You wrapped yourself in thick blankets of clouds
so no prayers could get through.
You treated us like dirty dishwater,
threw us out in the backyard of the nations.

^46-48"Our enemies shout abuse,
their mouths full of derision, spitting invective.
We've been to hell and back.
We've nowhere to turn, nowhere to go.
Rivers of tears pour from my eyes
at the smashup of my dear people.

^49-51"The tears stream from my eyes,
an artesian well of tears,
Until you, God, look down from on high,
look and see my tears.
When I see what's happened to the young women in the city,
the pain breaks my heart.

^52-54"Enemies with no reason to be enemies
hunted me down like a bird.
They threw me into a pit,
then pelted me with stones.
Then the rains came and filled the pit.
The water rose over my head. I said, 'It's all over.'

^55-57"I called out your name, O God,
called from the bottom of the pit.
You listened when I called out, 'Don't shut your ears!
Get me out of here! Save me!'
You came close when I called out.
You said, 'It's going to be all right.'

^58-60"You took my side, Master;
you brought me back alive!
God, you saw the wrongs heaped on me.
Give me my day in court!
Yes, you saw their mean-minded schemes,
their plots to destroy me.

^61-63"You heard, God, their vicious gossip,
their behind-my-back plots to ruin me.
They never quit, these enemies of mine, dreaming up mischief,
hatching out malice, day after day after day.
Sitting down or standing up—just look at them!—
they mock me with vulgar doggerel.

^64-66"Make them pay for what they've done, God.
Give them their just deserts.
Break their miserable hearts!
Damn their eyes!
Get good and angry. Hunt them down.
Make a total demolition here under your heaven!"

Waking Up with Nothing

4 Oh, oh, oh . . .
How gold is treated like dirt,
the finest gold thrown out with the garbage,
Priceless jewels scattered all over,
jewels loose in the gutters.

²And the people of Zion, once prized,
far surpassing their weight in gold,
Are now treated like cheap pottery,
like everyday pots and bowls mass-produced by a potter.

³Even wild jackals nurture their babies,
give them their breasts to suckle.
But my people have turned cruel to their babies,
like an ostrich in the wilderness.

⁴Babies have nothing to drink.
Their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths.
Little children ask for bread
but no one gives them so much as a crust.

⁵People used to the finest cuisine
forage for food in the streets.
People used to the latest in fashions
pick through the trash for something to wear.

⁶The evil guilt of my dear people
was worse than the sin of Sodom—
The city was destroyed in a flash,
and no one around to help.

⁷The splendid and sacred nobles
once glowed with health.
Their bodies were robust and ruddy,
their beards like carved stone.

⁸But now they are smeared with soot,
unrecognizable in the street,
Their bones sticking out,
their skin dried out like old leather.

⁹Better to have been killed in battle
than killed by starvation.
Better to have died of battle wounds
than to slowly starve to death.

¹⁰Nice and kindly women
boiled their own children for supper.
This was the only food in town
when my dear people were broken.

¹¹God let all his anger loose, held nothing back.
He poured out his raging wrath.
He set a fire in Zion
that burned it to the ground.

¹²The kings of the earth couldn't believe it.
World rulers were in shock,
Watching old enemies march in big as you please,
right through Jerusalem's gates.

¹³Because of the sins of her prophets
and the evil of her priests,
Who exploited good and trusting people,
robbing them of their lives,

¹⁴These prophets and priests blindly grope their way through the streets,
grimy and stained from their dirty lives,
Wasted by their wasted lives,
shuffling from fatigue, dressed in rags.

¹⁵People yell at them, "Get out of here, dirty old men!
Get lost, don't touch us, don't infect us!"
They have to leave town. They wander off.
Nobody wants them to stay here.
Everyone knows, wherever they wander,
that they've been kicked out of their own hometown.

¹⁶God himself scattered them.
No longer does he look out for them.
He has nothing to do with the priests;
he cares nothing for the elders.

¹⁷We watched and watched,
wore our eyes out looking for help. And nothing.
We mounted our lookouts and looked
for the help that never showed up.

¹⁸They tracked us down, those hunters.
It wasn't safe to go out in the street.
Our end was near, our days numbered.
We were doomed.

¹⁹They came after us faster than eagles in flight,
pressed us hard in the mountains, ambushed us in the desert.

²⁰Our king, our life's breath, the anointed of God,
was caught in their traps—
Our king under whose protection
we always said we'd live.

²¹Celebrate while you can, O Edom!
Live it up in Uz!
For it won't be long before you drink this cup, too.
You'll find out what it's like to drink God's wrath,
Get drunk on God's wrath
and wake up with nothing, stripped naked.

²²And that's it for you, Zion. The punishment's complete.
You won't have to go through this exile again.
But Edom, your time is coming:
He'll punish your evil life, put all your sins on display.

Give Us a Fresh Start

5 ^1-22"Remember, God, all we've been through.
Study our plight, the black mark we've made in history.
Our precious land has been given to outsiders,
our homes to strangers.
Orphans we are, not a father in sight,
and our mothers no better than widows.
We have to pay to drink our own water.
Even our firewood comes at a price.
We're nothing but slaves, bullied and bowed,
worn out and without any rest.
We sold ourselves to Assyria and Egypt
just to get something to eat.
Our parents sinned and are no more,
and now we're paying for the wrongs they did.
Slaves rule over us;
there's no escape from their grip.
We risk our lives to gather food
in the bandit-infested desert.
Our skin has turned black as an oven,
dried out like old leather from the famine.
Our wives were raped in the streets in Zion,
and our virgins in the cities of Judah.
They hanged our princes by their hands,
dishonored our elders.
Strapping young men were put to women's work,
mere boys forced to do men's work.
The city gate is empty of wise elders.
Music from the young is heard no more.
All the joy is gone from our hearts.
Our dances have turned into dirges.
The crown of glory has toppled from our head.
Woe! Woe! Would that we'd never sinned!
Because of all this we're heartsick;
we can't see through the tears.
On Mount Zion, wrecked and ruined,
jackals pace and prowl.
And yet, God, you're sovereign still,
your throne intact and eternal.
So why do you keep forgetting us?
Why dump us and leave us like this?
Bring us back to you, God—we're ready to come back.
Give us a fresh start.
As it is, you've cruelly disowned us.
You've been so very angry with us."

The Message (MSG)

Hebrews 10:19-39

Don't Throw It All Away

^19-21So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into "the Holy Place." Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The "curtain" into God's presence is his body.

^22-25So let's do it—full of belief, confident that we're presentable inside and out. Let's keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.

^26-31If we give up and turn our backs on all we've learned, all we've been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ's sacrifice and are left on our own to face the Judgment—and a mighty fierce judgment it will be! If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God's Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter. God has warned us that he'll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: "Vengeance is mine, and I won't overlook a thing" and "God will judge his people." Nobody's getting by with anything, believe me.

^32-39Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse—some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn't touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back. So don't throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It's still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.

It won't be long now, he's on the way;
he'll show up most any minute.
But anyone who is right with me thrives on loyal trust;
if he cuts and runs, I won't be very happy.

But we're not quitters who lose out. Oh, no! We'll stay with it and survive, trusting all the way.

The Message (MSG)