The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Friday November 17, 2017 (NIV)

Against Edom

35 The Lord’s word came to me: ² Human one, face Mount Seir, and prophesy against it. ³ Say to it, The Lord God proclaims:

⁵ Because you nursed an ancient grudge, you handed the Israelites over to the sword in the time of their distress, during their final punishment. ⁶ So now the Lord God proclaims: As surely as I live, I will prepare you for blood, and blood will pursue you. Because you don’t hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you. ⁷ I will turn Mount Seir into a desolate wasteland, when I cut off from it both passerby and homecomer. ⁸ I will fill its highlands—your hills and your valleys, and all your ravines—with its slain. Those who are slain by the sword will fall on them. ⁹ I will turn you into an eternal desolation. Your cities won’t be inhabited, and you will know that I am the Lord.

¹⁰ You said, “These two nations and these two territories are mine. We will take possession of them even if the Lord is there.” ¹¹ Therefore, the Lord God proclaims: As surely as I live, I will act according to the anger and zeal you displayed when you dealt with them so hatefully. When I judge you, I will make myself known to them, ¹² and you will know that I am the Lord. I’ve heard the lies and libels that you uttered against Israel’s highlands when you said, “They are laid waste. They’ve been given to us to consume.” ¹³ With your mouths you exalted yourselves against me and spoke your words against me. I myself heard it!

¹⁴ The Lord God proclaims: As the whole world rejoices, I will turn you into a desolation. ¹⁵ Just as you rejoiced over the house of Israel’s inheritance because it became desolate, so I will deal with you. Mount Seir, you will become a desolation, with all of Edom, all of it. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

Mountains of Israel

36 You, human one, prophesy to Israel’s mountains and say, Hear the Lord’s word, mountains of Israel! ² The Lord God proclaims: The enemy mocked you and said, “The ancient heights belong to us.” ³ Therefore, prophesy and say, The Lord God proclaims: When the surviving nations pressed in and ravaged you from all around to lay claim to you, you became an object of the people’s slander and derision. ⁴ Hear the Lord God’s word, mountains of Israel! The Lord God proclaims to the mountains and the hills, the watercourses and the valleys, the desolate ruins and the abandoned cities that were contemptuously looted by the surviving nations all around you.

⁵ So now, says the Lord God, I will speak in my fiery passion against the surviving nations and against Edom, all those who gleefully and spitefully took my land for themselves as a possession only for plunder.^{[a] 6} Prophesy concerning Israel’s fertile land, and say to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys, The Lord God proclaims: Because you endured the ridicule of the nations, my passion and fury lead me to speak. ⁷ So now the Lord God proclaims: I myself swear that the nations round about you will themselves suffer ridicule. ⁸ But you, mountains of Israel, will extend your branches and bear your fruit for my people Israel, because they will come home very soon. ⁹ Look, I’m here for you, and I will turn toward you, and you will be farmed and sown. ¹⁰ I will populate you with human beings, the whole house of Israel, all of them. The cities will be inhabited, the ruins rebuilt. ¹¹ When I make people and animals increase on you, they will multiply and be fruitful. I will cause you to be inhabited as you were before. I will do more good for you than in the beginning, and you will know that I am the Lord. ¹² I will let people walk through you, my people Israel! They will lay claim to you, you will be their inheritance, and you will no longer deprive them of anything.

¹³ The Lord God proclaims: Because people say, “You are a devourer of human beings” and “You are depriving your nation,” ¹⁴ therefore, you will no longer devour human beings or deprive your nation of anything. This is what the Lord God says. ¹⁵ You won’t have to listen anymore to the taunts of the nations or endure the scorn of the peoples. And you will no longer deprive your nation of anything. This is what the Lord God says.

A new heart

¹⁶ The Lord’s word came to me: ¹⁷ Human one, when the house of Israel lived on their fertile land, they polluted it with their ways and deeds. Their ways before me were polluted like the blood of menstruation, ¹⁸ and so I poured out my fury on them for all the blood they had poured out on the land and for all the defilement of their idols. ¹⁹ When I scattered them to the nations and dispersed them into other lands, I judged them according to their ways and deeds. ²⁰ But then when they entered the other nations, they degraded my holy name because it was said of them, “These are the Lord’s people, yet they had to leave his land.” ²¹ So I had compassion on my holy name, which the house of Israel degraded among the nations where they had gone.

²² Therefore, say to the house of Israel, The Lord God proclaims: House of Israel, I’m not acting for your sake but for the sake of my holy name, which you degraded among the nations where you have gone. ²³ I will make my great name holy, which was degraded among the nations when you dishonored it among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord. This is what the Lord God says.

When I make myself holy among you in their sight, ²⁴ I will take you from the nations, I will gather you from all the countries, and I will bring you to your own fertile land. ²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be cleansed of all your pollution. I will cleanse you of all your idols. ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove your stony heart from your body and replace it with a living one, ²⁷ and I will give you my spirit so that you may walk according to my regulations and carefully observe my case laws. ²⁸ Then you will live in the land that I gave to your ancestors, you will be my people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ I will save you from all your uncleanness, and I will summon the grain and make it grow abundantly so that you won’t endure famine. ³⁰ I will make abundant the orchards’ fruit and the fields’ produce so that you will never again endure the shame of famine among the nations. ³¹ Then you will remember your evil ways and no-good deeds, and you will feel disgust for yourselves because of your sinful and detestable practices. ³² Not for your sake do I act. This is what the Lord God proclaims. Let that be known to you! Be ashamed and be humiliated because of all your ways, house of Israel.

³³ The Lord God proclaims: On the day that I cleanse you of all your guilt, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the ruins will be rebuilt. ³⁴ The desolate land will be farmed, and it won’t be like it was when it seemed a wasteland to all who passed by. ³⁵ They will say, “This land, which was a desolation, has become like the garden of Eden.” And the cities that were ruined, ravaged, and razed are now fortified and inhabited. ³⁶ The surviving nations around you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt what was torn down and have planted what was made desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.

³⁷ The Lord God proclaims: I will also allow the house of Israel to ask me to do this for them: that I increase them like a human flock. ³⁸ Like the holy flock, like the flock of Jerusalem at its festivals, the ruined cities will be filled with a human flock. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

Greeting

1 From James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To the twelve tribes who are scattered outside the land of Israel.

Greetings!

Stand firm

² My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. ³ After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴ Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing. ⁵ But anyone who needs wisdom should ask God, whose very nature is to give to everyone without a second thought, without keeping score. Wisdom will certainly be given to those who ask. ⁶ Whoever asks shouldn’t hesitate. They should ask in faith, without doubting. Whoever doubts is like the surf of the sea, tossed and turned by the wind. ⁷ People like that should never imagine that they will receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ They are double-minded, unstable in all their ways.

⁹ Brothers and sisters who are poor should find satisfaction in their high status. ¹⁰ Those who are wealthy should find satisfaction in their low status, because they will die off like wildflowers. ¹¹ The sun rises with its scorching heat and dries up the grass so that its flowers fall and its beauty is lost. Just like that, in the midst of their daily lives, the wealthy will waste away. ¹² Those who stand firm during testing are blessed. They are tried and true. They will receive the life God has promised to those who love him as their reward.

Our cravings versus God’s gifts

¹³ No one who is tested should say, “God is tempting me!” This is because God is not tempted by any form of evil, nor does he tempt anyone. ¹⁴ Everyone is tempted by their own cravings; they are lured away and enticed by them. ¹⁵ Once those cravings conceive, they give birth to sin; and when sin grows up, it gives birth to death.

¹⁶ Don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. ¹⁸ He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created.

Psalm 116