A Walk Through The Word

February 3, 2021

The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Wednesday February 3, 2021 (NIV)

Exodus 17:8-19:15

⁸While the Israelites were camped at Rephidim, soldiers of Amalek came and attacked them. ⁹Moses called for a young leader named Joshua.

Moses (to Joshua): Select some of our best men, and go fight against the soldiers of Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand at the crest of that hill overlooking the battlefield with God’s staff in my hand.

¹⁰Joshua did exactly as Moses had instructed him to do. He gathered the strongest men he could find and fought against the soldiers of Amalek. Meanwhile, Moses, Aaron, and Hur climbed to the top of the hill.

¹¹It happened that whenever Moses raised his hand, the battle went well for Israel; but whenever he lowered his hand to rest, Amalek began to win. ¹²When Moses became too tired to hold his hands up any longer, Aaron and Hur took a stone and sat him down on it. Then both men stood beside Moses, one on each side, holding his hands up and keeping them steady until sunset. ¹³In the end, Joshua and the men of Israel defeated Amalek and his soldiers with the sword.

Eternal One (to Moses): ¹⁴Write down what I say on a scroll as a memorial record of these events, and read it aloud so Joshua can hear: “I will erase all traces of the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”

¹⁵Then Moses constructed an altar and called it, “The Eternal Is My Battle Flag.”

Moses: ¹⁶Because Amalek raised a defiant hand against the throne of the Eternal, He has promised to wage war against Amalek through future generations.

18 Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, the priest of Midian, heard about all that God had done for Moses and His people Israel, and how the Eternal had rescued Israel out of Egypt. ^2-3Now Moses had sent his wife, Zipporah, and her two sons back to Jethro from Egypt, and Jethro had cared for them in his long absence. Moses had named one son Gershom, because as he said, “I have lived as an outsider in an unfamiliar land.”^[a] ⁴Moses had named the other son Eliezer, for he said, “My father’s God was my helper, and He rescued me from Pharaoh’s sword.” ⁵Jethro (Moses’ father-in-law) brought Zipporah and her two sons into the desert to meet Moses when he and the people of Israel were camped near God’s mountain.

This place is special for Moses, for it was here that he first met God in the burning bush.

⁶Jethro sent a servant with a message for Moses.

Jethro (to Moses): I, Jethro, your father-in-law, am coming out to see you and I’m bringing your wife and two sons with me.

⁷So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law. When he saw him, he bowed down before Jethro and kissed him. They each asked how the other was doing, and then they went into Moses’ tent.

⁸Moses told Jethro the whole story. He told him everything that the Eternal had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians on behalf of Israel. He told him about all the misery and tribulations they had run into during their long journey. And then he told how the Eternal had rescued them. ⁹Jethro was thrilled to hear of all the kindness the Eternal had shown Israel, especially how He rescued them from the powerful hand of the Egyptians.

Jethro: ¹⁰Praise to the Eternal, for He rescued you from the powerful hand of the Egyptians, from the cruel grip of Pharaoh. He has liberated His people from beneath the harsh hand of their Egyptian masters. ¹¹Now I know with all my heart that the Eternal is greater than all gods because of the way He delivered His people when Egyptians in their arrogance abused them.^[b]

¹²Jethro then took a burnt offering and sacrifices and presented them to God. Aaron and the rest of the Israelite elders gathered to dedicate a meal to God with Moses’ father-in-law.

¹³On the next day, Moses sat and served as judge, settling disputes among the people. Those with grievances surrounded him from sunrise to sundown waiting to present their case. ¹⁴Jethro noticed all Moses was doing for the people.

Jethro: What do you think you are doing? Why are you the only one who is able to judge the disputes of all these people who surround you from sunrise to sundown?

Moses: ¹⁵These people come to me seeking direction from God. ¹⁶When two people are arguing and can’t resolve their differences, they come to me; and I settle the matter between them. This is one way I help God’s people understand His requirements and instructions.

Jethro: ¹⁷What you are doing is not good for you. ¹⁸The responsibility is just too much. You are going to wear yourself out. Not only that, you’re going to wear out the people too. You can’t do it all by yourself. ¹⁹I am going to give you a piece of advice, so listen up and God will be with you. You should represent the people before God, and carry their concerns to Him. ²⁰Teach them God’s requirements and pass on His laws. Show them the right way to live and the kind of work they should be doing. ²¹As for all these other duties you have taken on, choose competent leaders who fear God, love truth, despise dishonesty, and won’t take bribes. After you divide and subdivide all the people into various groups of a thousand, hundred, fifty, and ten, put the men of integrity you selected in charge over the various groups. ²²Let these righteous leaders be ready to judge the people whenever it is necessary. If there is some major problem, they can bring that to you. Otherwise, these select leaders ought to be able to handle the minor problems. This will be much easier for you, and they will help you carry this burden. ²³If you do what I advise and God directs you, then you will be able to handle the pressure. Not only that, but all these people standing around needing help, they will be able to return to their tents at peace.

²⁴Moses accepted Jethro’s advice and did all that he said. ²⁵He chose competent leaders and put them in charge of the community of Israel. He divided and subdivided the nation into groups of a thousand, hundred, fifty, and ten, and he appointed a leader over each group. ²⁶The righteous leaders judged the people whenever disputes or problems arose. Any major quarrel, they brought to Moses for his judgment; but every minor argument, they judged themselves.

²⁷When it was time for Jethro to return to his own land, Moses sent his father-in-law on his way.

19 The Israelites entered the desert of Sinai on the day the third new moon appeared after the Israelites left Egypt. ²After departing from Rephidim, they entered into the desert of Sinai and set up camp out in the desert. The entire community of Israel camped right in front of the mountain of God.

³Moses climbed the mountain to meet with God, and the Eternal spoke to him from the mountain.

Jethro is more than Moses’ father-in-law; he is also an insightful leader and a skilled counselor. He sees that what Moses is trying to do is counterproductive. Moses is wearing himself down in continual service to the people, and the people are frustrated with the many hours they must wait to have their cases heard by a single arbitrator. Jethro’s counsel advances the best possible solution for all concerned. Moses remains the sole spiritual leader of the emerging nation, the people’s representative to God, and the conduit of God’s wisdom to the people. But now he is to delegate his governing authority to a set of judges.

The legal and administrative system Jethro proposes is much like a military command with the masses of people divided and then subdivided. Those who are honest and capable hear the normal disputes that arise on a daily basis, much as they have observed Moses handling them in the past. The more difficult and unique issues are still dealt with by Moses. In this system, there is no difference between civil disputes and religious inquiries. This is an administration designed to handle all problems, secular or spiritual. Life, after all, doesn’t fall into nice, neat categories.

Eternal One: This is what I want you to say to the house of Jacob—to all the people of Israel: ⁴“You are eyewitnesses of all that I did to the Egyptians. You saw how I snatched you from the bonds of slavery and carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. ⁵Now if you will hear My voice, obey what I say, and keep My covenant, then you—out of all the nations of the world—will be My treasured people. After all, the earth belongs to Me. ⁶You will be My kingdom of priests, a nation holy and set apart.” Tell the Israelites exactly what I have told to you.

As a kingdom of priests, Israel exists to serve as agents of God’s blessing. The people are to bear witness to God’s character and carry to Him the world’s concerns.

⁷Moses descended from the mountain and assembled the elders of Israel and told them everything the Eternal commanded him to say.

Israelites: ⁸We will do everything the Eternal has told us to do!

Moses took what the people said back to the Eternal.

Eternal One (to Moses): ⁹I will come to you in a thick cloud so that the people will be able to hear My voice when I speak to you. That way they will trust you forever.

Then Moses told the Eternal all that the people had said.

Eternal One (to Moses): ^10-11Go down to the people and get them ready to meet Me today and tomorrow by purifying themselves and washing their garments. By the third day, they need to be ready, for on that day I will descend from Mount Sinai so that everyone can see. ¹²You are to set up boundaries all around the mountain and tell the people, “Be careful that you do not cross the boundaries and go up on the mountain or even touch the edge of it. If anyone so much as touches the mountain, he should be put to death. ¹³No one is to touch the person or animal who crosses the boundary; stone them or shoot them with arrows but do not touch them. It doesn’t matter whether it is a human or an animal, it must be put to death.” But when they hear the long blast of the ram’s horn, then they are permitted to make their way up on the mountain.

¹⁴Moses went down the mountain and purified all the people. They washed their clothes. ¹⁵He gave instructions to everyone.

Moses: Be ready for the third day. Do not have sexual relations with your spouse between now and then.

Footnotes:

18:2–3 Exodus 2:22
18:11 Meaning of the Hebrew is unclear.

The Voice (VOICE)

Matthew 22:34-23:12

³⁴Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, a group of Pharisees met to consider new questions that might trip up Jesus. ³⁵A legal expert thought of one that would certainly stump Him.

Pharisees: ³⁶Teacher, of all the laws, which commandment is the greatest?

Jesus (quoting Scripture): ³⁷“Love the Eternal One your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind.”^[a] ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is nearly as important, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”^[b] ⁴⁰The rest of the law, and all the teachings of the prophets, are but variations on these themes.

⁴¹Since the Pharisees were gathered together there, Jesus took the opportunity to pose a question of His own.

Jesus: ⁴²What do you think about the Anointed One? Whose Son is He?

Pharisees: But, of course, He is the Son of David.

Jesus: ⁴³Then how is it that David—whose words were surely shaped by the Spirit—calls Him “Lord”? For in his psalms David writes,

⁴⁴The Master said to my master
“Sit here at My right hand,
in the place of honor and power,
And I will gather Your enemies together,
lead them in on hands and knees,
and You will rest Your feet on their backs.”^[c]

⁴⁵How can David call his own Son “Lord”?

⁴⁶No one had an answer to Jesus’ question. And from that day forward, no one asked Him anything.

23 Jesus spoke to His disciples and to the crowds that had gathered around.

Jesus with the Pharisees listening uses them as an example of the pious but truly unrighteous. He calls the people to mind the Pharisees’ words, not their examples, because they talk about righteousness and faithfulness, but they are a faithless and unrighteous crew.

Jesus: ²The Pharisees and the scribes occupy the seat of Moses. ³So you should do the things they tell you to do—but don’t do the things they do. ⁴They heap heavy burdens upon their neighbors’ backs, and they prove unwilling to do anything to help shoulder the load. ⁵They are interested, above all, in presentation: they wrap their heads and arms in the accoutrements of prayer, they cloak themselves with flowing tasseled prayer garments, ⁶they covet the seats of honor at fine banquets and in the synagogue, ⁷and they love it when people recognize them in the marketplace, call them “Teacher,” and beam at them.

⁸But you: do not let anyone call you “Rabbi,” that is, “Teacher.” For you are all brothers, and you have only one teacher, the Anointed One. ⁹Indeed, do not call anyone on earth “Father,” for you have only one father, and He is in heaven. ¹⁰Neither let anyone call you “leader,” for you have one leader—the Anointed One. ¹¹If you are recognized at all, let it be for your service. Delight in the one who calls you servant. ¹²For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Footnotes:

The Voice (VOICE)

Psalm 27:7-14

⁷I cannot shout any louder. Eternal One—hear my cry
and respond with Your grace.
⁸The prodding of my heart leads me to chase after You.
I am seeking You, Eternal One—don’t retreat from me.
⁹You have always answered my call.
Don’t hide from me now.

Don’t give up on me in anger at Your servant.
You have always been there for me.
Don’t throw me to the side and forget me,
my God and only salvation.
¹⁰My father and mother have deserted me,
yet the Eternal will take me in.

¹¹O Eternal, show me Your way,
shine Your light brightly on this path, and make it level for me,
for my enemies are lurking in the recesses and ravines along the way.
¹²They are watching—hoping to seize me.
Do not release me to their desires or surrender me to their will!
Liars are standing against me,
breathing out cruel lies hoping that I will die.

¹³I will move past my enemies with this one, sure hope:
that with my own eyes, I will see the goodness of the Eternal
in the land of the living.

¹⁴Please answer me: Don’t give up.
Wait for the Eternal in expectation, and be strong.
Again, wait for the Eternal.

The Voice (VOICE)

Proverbs 6:27-35

²⁷Can you carry fire right next to your body
and keep your clothes from burning?
²⁸Can you walk over fiery coals
and keep your feet from blistering?
²⁹Take another man’s wife, and you will find out—
whoever touches her will be found guilty.
³⁰People don’t despise a thief
who only steals to fill his hunger;
³¹Still if they catch him, he must repay seven times over—
he could end up losing everything he owns!
³²By contrast only a fool would commit adultery
since by his action he loses not only his possessions but also his own life.
³³He will suffer injury and be disgraced;
dishonor will leave a permanent mark on his life.
³⁴For jealousy sparks a husband’s rage—
when he gets his revenge, he’ll show no mercy.
³⁵He will not be paid off or appeased;
no bribe or gift will set things right.

The Voice (VOICE)

February 2, 2021

02/02/2021 DAB Transcript

Exodus 15:19-17:7, Matthew 22:1-33, Psalms 27:1-6, Proverbs 6:20-26

Today is the 2^nd day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy and an honor to be here with you today as…well…we’re taking these steps forward into this new month, so we can move into it comfortably and sail through all the Scriptures have before us. So, it’s good to be here with you as we continue our journey through the month of February. We are reading from the Voice Translation this week, picking up with our story of the children of Israel in the wilderness from the book of Exodus. Just reminding you, yesterday there was a showdown. The enemy was coming against a population of former slaves known as the Hebrews. They were backed up to the Red Sea. There was nowhere to run, and God split the Red Sea and they crossed over. And the…the Army, the Egyptian army was just gonna go through as well, but they didn’t make it. The ocean collapsed over them and that was that. And that’s kind of where we find ourselves. They got to the other side of the Red Sea on dry ground and saw what happened to their enemy and then they burst out in song. And, so, we find ourselves on the other side of the Red Sea in a time of celebration and we will continue with that singing and dancing today. Exodus chapter 15 verse 19 through 17 verse 7.

Commentary:

Okay. Let’s talk about what we read in the book of Exodus today. So, we are with the children of Israel in the wilderness now and they are freed from slavery in Egypt. And I mean, man, God has invaded Egypt, right, dismantled Egypt and the Israelites essentially pillaged Egypt by requesting silver and gold on their way out. And, so, they pillaged Egypt without even drawing his sword. So, obviously God had been with them. And then He’s leading them cloud by day pillar of fire by night. They cross the Red Sea on dry ground and watch the armies of Pharaoh be drowned in that same Red Sea. And then they head out into the deep deep deep desert and they can’t find water. And sure, sure that’s a struggle. In fact, that’s a struggle for survival. That’s what God was up to. They are in the wilderness, and they are trying to do what they can do to survive in their own strength when God had invited them into a different story, one that was going to shift and change their identity altogether. The only identity and we will…we will touch on this many times because I’ve already mentioned, we’re in the wilderness part of our journey right now in the Old Testament and we’ll be in the wilderness. And we need to learn the message of the wilderness just like the children of Israel need to learn the lesson of the wilderness because you can’t get out of it until you learn. So, let’s learn it. So, here they are wandering around and their thirsty. They’ve seen God do all the things we just mentioned. So, they have plenty of proof that He is with them that He cares about them and that He is most powerful. And yet here they are, they can’t find water and what do they say, “why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness?” And then they start thinking about slave days, cucumbers, bread, meat in the pot. That’s what they had. And, so, they’re lamenting that they don’t have those things anymore even though they have their freedom. They would rather give up their freedom for an easier path. You see where this is going friends? Like all we gotta do is understand that the Bible so often is simply a mirror exposing us, like exposing all the things that we are naked and ashamed about, exposing the ways in which we are hiding and pretending.

So, we watch Jesus do this kind of stuff with His words in the New Testament. We’re watching this, these stories become the stories of our lives as well as we pay attention. How many times have we felt freedom, have we felt God rescuing us, that He did rescue us and then things got difficult again or they got even harder quickly? And we would trade freedom for slavery just to have it easy. There’s so many things to think about on so many levels in that that that is where the Bible has led us to today, to invite the Holy Spirit to reveal these ways that we choose slavery over freedom because slavery might be easier, bondage might be easier even though it’s going to kill us in the end. When God is saying fight for your freedom and then you will be free. Like, learn to trust me utterly and you will be free. Nothing can touch you after that because nothing can be taken from you. You know who you belong to and you know that He is the most-high God and that for eternity you will be His child, you will be in fellowship with Him. There’s nothing that can take that away from you. Until we learn that we just keep making circles in the sand and it’s going nowhere. And we’re watching this in the children of Israel’s lives but it doesn’t take too much effort to see it in our own.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit come. Yeah, it might be easier sometimes to just give up, just settle for whatever, just…just be in bondage because freedom that…that would be too painful, that would be too much of a risk, that would be…that would be too difficult. We’d give up, we’d walk back. We’ve done it so many times. But You are inviting us like, for real into freedom, that we can walk into freedom. Even though it will be supremely difficult we can become free if we will completely and utterly depend upon You. Come Holy Spirit and show us the ways that we’ve put the chains back on our ankles and wrists and that we just keep carrying around bondage for no reason. And the only reason being that we just think it will be too hard to be free. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

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February 2, 2021

The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Tuesday February 2, 2021 (NIV)

Exodus 15:19-17:7

¹⁹When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot-drivers drove into the sea, the Eternal caused the waters to collapse upon them. But the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.

²⁰The prophetess, Miriam (Aaron’s sister), picked up a tambourine, and all the rest of the women followed her with tambourines and joyful dancing.

²¹Miriam: Sing to the Eternal One, for He has won a great victory;
He has thrown the horse and its chariot into the sea.

²²Then Moses led Israel away from the Red Sea, and they entered the desert of Shur. They traveled for three days in the desert before they found water.

²³When they came to the place where they did find water, they could not drink it because it was so bitter. So they called the place Marah, or bitter. ²⁴Because they were very thirsty, the people complained to Moses.

Israelites: What are we supposed to drink?

²⁵Moses then asked the Eternal for help, and the Eternal showed him a log. Moses threw the log into the bitter water, and the water became sweet. At Marah the Eternal established an important principle and set a standard for His people so that He could test them.

Eternal One: ²⁶If you will listen closely to My voice—the voice of your God—and do what is right in My eyes, pay attention to My instructions, and keep all of My laws; then I will not bring on you any of the plagues that I did on the Egyptians, for I am the Eternal, your Healer.

²⁷Then they traveled on to an oasis called Elim, where there were 12 freshwater springs and 70 palm trees with dates. They set up camp there next to the waters.

16 Then the entire community of Israel departed from Elim and entered the desert of Sin, which is located between Elim and Sinai. They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from Egypt.

The covenant people leave the pleasant, coastal area around Elim to begin the long journey through the wilderness. It will take longer than anyone expects.

²As soon as they got to the desert of Sin, the entire community of Israelites complained to Moses and Aaron.

Israelites: ³It would have been better if we had died by the hand of the Eternal in Egypt. At least we had plenty to eat and drink, for our pots were stuffed with meat and we had as much bread as we wanted. But now you have brought the entire community out to the desert to starve us to death.

Eternal One (to Moses): ⁴Look! I will cause bread to rain down from heaven for you,^[a] and the people will go out and gather a helping of it each day. I will test them to see if they are willing to live by My instructions. ⁵On the sixth day, they will gather the usual amount; but when they go to prepare it, it will end up being twice what they usually gather.

Moses and Aaron (to the Israelites): ⁶When evening falls, you will know that the Eternal has led you out of the land of Egypt. ⁷In the morning your eyes will see His glory because He takes your complaints against us as complaints against Him. Who are we, that you direct your complaints to us?

Moses (continuing): ⁸This will take place when the Eternal One provides you with meat in the evening and plenty of bread in the morning because He hears all your grumbling and complaining against Him. Why do you complain to us? Your complaints are not against us, but against Him.

⁹(to Aaron) Tell the entire community of Israelites, “Draw near to the Eternal. He has heard your complaints.”

¹⁰While Aaron was speaking to the entire community of the Israelites, they all looked out toward the desert, and the radiant glory of the Eternal could be seen in the cloud. ¹¹The Eternal spoke to Moses.

Eternal One (to Moses): ¹²Rest assured, I have heard the constant complaining of the Israelites. Tell them, “In the evening, you will have meat to eat; and in the morning, you will have enough bread to satisfy your gnawing hunger. Then you will know that I am the Eternal your God.”

¹³That evening, quail flew in and covered the camp; and when morning arrived, what seemed to be ordinary dew was all around the camp.

¹⁴But when the dew evaporated, it left behind a thin, mysterious, flaky substance that looked like frost on top of the dry desert ground. ¹⁵The people of Israel went out to examine it. They had never seen anything quite like it.

Israelites (to one another): What is it?

The people didn’t have a clue what this strange substance was.

Moses: It is the bread which the Eternal has given you to eat. ¹⁶Here are His instructions: “Gather only as much of it as you should eat by yourself. Pick up two quarts^[b] of bread for each person who lives in your tent.”

¹⁷The Israelites did as they were told. Some people gathered a lot, others gathered less. ¹⁸When they used a two-quart jar to measure it, the one who had gathered a lot didn’t have more than he needed; and the one who gathered less had just what he needed.^[c] Miraculously, each person and each family—regardless of how much they gathered—had exactly what they needed.

Moses (continuing God’s instructions): ¹⁹Don’t try to keep any of it until the morning. Either eat it all, or throw it away.

²⁰But some people ignored Moses and tried to keep some of it until the next morning. Overnight it became wormy and started to have a dreadful smell. Moses became furious with them because they had disobeyed God’s instructions.

²¹Every morning the people went out and gathered it—each family took only what it needed. By the time the sun became hot, it had melted away. ²²On the sixth day the people went out and gathered, but they came back with twice as much as usual—four quarts per person. All the leaders of the community thought they needed to tell Moses what had happened.

Moses (to the leaders): ²³Listen to what the Eternal commanded: Tomorrow, the seventh day, is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath dedicated to Him. Bake or boil whatever you need for today’s meals. Whatever is left over, keep it to eat tomorrow. It won’t spoil.

God wants His people to keep the Sabbath as a special day and to depend on Him—not their own efforts—to supply all they need.

²⁴So the people stored some of it until the next morning, just as Moses had instructed. None of it spoiled, nor did it have any worms.

Moses: ²⁵Eat what is left over today, because today is a Sabbath to the Eternal, a day of rest. You will not find any of it in the field today. ²⁶You are to gather it for six days, but on the seventh day (the Sabbath), none of it will be on the ground.

²⁷When the seventh day arrived, some of the people ignored Moses and went out to gather it anyway; but there was none to gather.

Eternal One (to Moses): ²⁸How much longer are you going to disobey My commands and instructions? ²⁹Look! I have given you the Sabbath as a day of rest. That is why I give you an extra portion of food on the sixth day. Everyone should stay where they are and not go out to work on the seventh day.

³⁰So the people did as God directed and rested on the seventh day.

³¹The community of Israel decided to name this mysterious substance “manna” (which means, “What is it?”). It was white like a coriander seed, and it tasted sweet like honey wafers.

Moses: ³²This is the instruction of the Eternal: “Preserve two quarts of the manna so that future generations can see the bread I provided for you in the desert when I led you out of the land of Egypt.”

³³(to Aaron) Go, find a jar and fill it with two quarts of manna. Put it in a special place before the Eternal to preserve it for future generations to see.

“The Eternal Provides.” That could well be the theme for the entire exodus adventure. When there is no water, He provides. When there is no bread, He provides. When there is no meat, He provides. These provisions are clearly God’s gift to His people. They do not depend upon the cleverness, skill, or hard work of the Israelites. It must be difficult for these former slaves—whose lives have been all about work—to stop, to rest, and to truly believe their lives and futures depend upon God and not upon themselves.

³⁴Aaron did as the Eternal commanded. He stored the jar before the covenant to keep it safe.

This is an interesting statement. Aaron is directed to place the jar with the special breadlike substance that God provides “before the covenant,” which is either a reference to the directives God will provide (chapter 20) or to the special container—the covenant chest—God directs Aaron to build (chapter 25) to preserve some of Israel’s most precious treasures from the exodus and their time in the wilderness. Neither of these items exists at this point in time.

³⁵For 40 years, the Israelites were sustained by the manna God supplied. They ate it until they arrived at the borderlands of Canaan, the edge of the land they would one day inhabit. (³⁶And their omer was a two-quart measurement and in turn was one-tenth of an ephah.)^[d]

17 The entire community of Israel traveled in stages out of the desert of Sin, just as the Eternal instructed. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water there to quench their thirst. ²Once again the people complained to Moses.

Israelites: Give us water to drink! We’re thirsty.

Moses: Why do you aim your complaints at me? Why are you testing the Eternal One?

³But the people were so thirsty for water, they complained to Moses and leveled accusations against him.

Israelites: Why did you lead us out of Egypt? Was it to kill all of us—our children and livestock included—with this thirst?

⁴Moses had had enough of their complaints, so he cried out to the Eternal One.

Moses: What am I supposed to do with these people and their relentless complaining? They are on the verge of stoning me.

Eternal One (to Moses): ⁵Here’s what I want you to do: go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Also, be sure to bring your shepherd’s staff—the one with which you struck the Nile. ⁶I will be there when you arrive standing at the rock of Horeb. I want you to strike the rock with your staff; and when you do, water will flow out of it so that everyone will have enough to drink.

The elders of Israel accompanied Moses and watched as he did what the Eternal directed.

⁷Moses named the place Massah^[e] and Meribah,^[f] because the Israelites complained and tested the Eternal, saying, “Is He standing with us or not?”

Footnotes:

16:4 John 6:31
16:16 Hebrew measurement is omer.
16:18 2 Corinthians 8:15
16:36 An ephah was about 21 quarts or seven-tenths of a bushel.
17:7 Literally, “testing”
17:7 Literally, “complaining”

The Voice (VOICE)

Matthew 22:1-33

22 Jesus went on speaking in parables.

Jesus: ²The kingdom of heaven is like a king whose son was getting married. The king organized a great feast, a huge wedding banquet. ³He invited everyone he knew. The day of the wedding arrived, and the king sent his servants into town to track down his guests—but when the servants approached them with the king’s message, they refused to come. ⁴So the king sent out another batch of servants.

King: Tell those people I’ve invited to come to the wedding banquet! Tell them I have prepared a great feast! Everything is ready! The oxen and fattened cattle have all been butchered, the wine is decanted, and the table is laid out just so.

⁵And off the servants went, and they carried the king’s message to the errant guests—who still paid not a whit of attention. One guest headed into his field to work; another sat at his desk to attend to his accounts. ⁶The rest of the guests actually turned on the servants, brutalizing them and killing them. ⁷When he learned of this, the king was furious. He sent his army to kill the murderers and burn their towns. ⁸But there was, of course, still a wedding to celebrate.

King (to his remaining servants): The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited didn’t rise to the occasion. ⁹So go into the streets and invite anyone you see; invite everyone you meet.

¹⁰And the servants did just that—they went into the streets and invited everyone they met, rich and poor, good and bad, high and low, sick and well. Everyone who was invited came, and the wedding hall practically burst with guests.

¹¹The king looked around the wedding party with glee, but he spotted one man who was not dressed appropriately. In fact, he was dressed rather plainly, in clothes not at all fitting for a fine nuptial feast.

King: ¹²Kind sir, how did you get in here without a proper suit of wedding clothes?

The man was speechless. He had been invited in off the street, after all! ¹³Getting no response, the king told his servants,

King: Tie him up, and throw him out into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and grinding of teeth.

¹⁴For many are invited, but few are chosen.

¹⁵At that, the Pharisees left. They determined to trap this Jesus with His own words—hang Him by His own rope, you might say. ¹⁶They sent a batch of students to Him, along with a group that was loyal to Herod.

Students: Teacher, we know You are a man of integrity and You tell the truth about the way of God. We know You don’t cotton to public opinion. ¹⁷And that is why we trust You and want You to settle something for us: should we, God’s chosen people, pay taxes to Caesar or not?

¹⁸Jesus knew these men were out to trap Him.

Jesus: You hypocrites! Why do you show up here with such a transparent trick? ¹⁹Bring Me a coin you would use to pay tax.

Someone handed Him a denarius.^[a] ²⁰Jesus fingered the coin.

Jesus: Of whom is this a portrait, and who owns this inscription?

Students: ²¹Caesar.

Jesus: Well then, render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

²²And those who had come hoping to trick Jesus were confounded and amazed. And they left Him and went away.

²³That same day, a band of Sadducees—a sect of Jewish aristocrats who, among other things, did not expect a resurrection or anticipate any sort of future life at all—put their own question to Jesus.

Sadducees: ²⁴Teacher, the law of Moses teaches that if a married man dies with no children, then his brother must marry the widow and father children in his brother’s name. ²⁵Now we knew a family of seven brothers. The eldest brother married and died, and since he had no children, the next brother married his widow. ²⁶And shortly thereafter, that second brother died and the next until there were seven marriages with the same woman. ²⁷Eventually the wife died. ²⁸So now, Teacher, whose wife will she be at the resurrection? Will she have seven husbands, since they were each married to her?

According to Deuteronomy 25:5–6, a family member is supposed to marry a relative’s widow to carry on the deceased’s family name. Each man in this story dies, having fathered no children; that poor widow keeps marrying these brothers, and they keep dying. So in heaven, who is the husband?

Jesus: ²⁹You know neither God’s Scriptures nor God’s power—and so your assumptions are all wrong. ³⁰At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They will be like the messengers of heaven.

In heaven all will be devoting themselves to praise. It will not be a simple continuation of life on earth.

³¹A key to this resurrected life can be found in the words of Moses, which you do claim to read: ³²“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”^[b] Our God is not the God of the dead. He is the God of the living.

³³And again the crowd was amazed. They were astonished at His teaching.

Footnotes:

22:19 A Roman coin, equivalent to a day’s wage
22:32 Exodus 3:6

The Voice (VOICE)

Psalm 27:1-6

Psalm 27

A song of David.

¹The Eternal is my light amidst my darkness
and my rescue in times of trouble.
So whom shall I fear?
He surrounds me with a fortress of protection.
So nothing should cause me alarm.

The psalms provide us with a way to think about and pray through the various threats we face. Our enemies today may not be the same as in biblical times, but they are no less real. Consider the threats on the horizon. Some may be national. Others may be more personal. Still they come to surround us and destroy us if they could only get the chance. The reality is there are times when our enemies appear to have the upper hand and our cause is lost. But wait and listen to the psalm! All is not lost because, ultimately, God is our light and salvation. The darkness will lift, and our Savior will come. He will settle all scores, and we will live in the beauty of His presence.

²When my enemies advanced
to devour me alive,
They tripped and fell flat on their faces into the soil.

³When the armies of the enemy surround me,
I will not be afraid.
When death calls for me in the midst of war,
my soul is confident and unmoved.

⁴I am pleading with the Eternal for this one thing,
my soul’s desire:
To live with Him all of my days—
in the shadow of His temple,
To behold His beauty and ponder His ways
in the company of His people.

⁵His house is my shelter and secret retreat.
It is there I find peace in the midst of storm and turmoil.
Safety sits with me in the hiding place of God.
He will set me on a rock, high above the fray.

⁶God lifts me high above those with thoughts
of death and deceit that call for my life.
I will enter His presence, offering sacrifices and praise.
In His house, I am overcome with joy
As I sing, yes, and play music for the Eternal alone.

The Voice (VOICE)

Proverbs 6:20-26

²⁰So, my son, follow your father’s direction,
and don’t forget what your mother taught you—
²¹Keep their teachings close to your heart;
engrave them on a pendant, and hang it around your neck.
²²Their instruction will guide you along your journey,
guard you when you sleep,
and address you when you wake in the morning.
²³For their direction is a lamp; their instruction will light your path,
and their discipline will correct your missteps,
sending you down the right path of life.
²⁴They will keep you far from the corrupted woman,
away from the smooth talk of a seductive woman.
²⁵Do not lose yourself in desire for her beauty
or let her win you over with her painted eyes,
²⁶For you can buy a harlot with a loaf of bread,
but sex with another man’s wife will cost you your life.

The Voice (VOICE)

February 1, 2021

02/01/2021 DAB Transcript

Exodus 13:17-15:18, Matt 21:23-46, Ps 26:1-12, Pr 6:16-19

Today is the 1^st day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and it’s great to be here with you today. Obviously it’s a special day because we’re transitioning into the second month of the year, but it’s a special day because we’ve completed a whole month together, which means we are settling into a rhythm and we are settling into community for the year. It's…it’s interesting. If we…we make it to Valentine’s Day, then the chances are really good that we are going to make it through the year together. And, so, well done for making it all the way here to the second month of the year. Let’s just take a second to think back. It’s only been a month, but look at all that has happened. We…we found our origin story. We discussed that. We found out in the third chapter of Genesis what happened to us. We know this is the fall of man. We…we saw the repercussions of that immediately, both in the world and in the human heart. Mankind was naked and unashamed. That was the natural state of things. That’s how it was supposed to be both inward and outward week. We weren’t supposed to have to hide. We weren’t supposed to have hide from each other or from God. But that’s what happened, naked and ashamed and hiding. And that’s what we see everywhere we look, including in the mirror. And, so, we got some context. And we went through famous stories that we’ve probably heard our whole lives, like Noah and the flood. And we then met this man Abram and God calling this man Abram to a land he didn’t know and giving a promise for this land and changing his name to Abraham and entering into a covenant with him. And then we watched the miraculous story begin to unfold as generations passed to new generations and more and more children were born. And, so, Abraham has Isaac. Isaac as Jacob. And we hear this often in the Bible, “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” And then Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. And all the sudden we have a context for what we hear about the children of Israel. The children of Jacob and his offspring, the children of Israel. And we watched the story of Joseph at length, one of the children of Israel, who was trafficked by his brothers into slavery in Egypt. We watched God save Egypt from plague, saving Joseph’s family in the process. And then we watched them prosper in…in Egypt, four centuries. Like, four centuries, but they were enslaved and then we met another powerful pivotal figure in the Scriptures named Moses, who was sent back to Egypt to be the…the prophet of God and to demand the freedom of God’s people. And that brought on all these plagues that we’ve been reading about the last few days. And that’s where we find ourselves. The final plague has descended upon Egypt. The…the children of Israel have been forcibly forced out of Egypt. And that’s where we pick up the story as we begin this second month of the year. And we’re reading from the Voice Translation this week. Exodus chapter 13 verse 17 through 15 verse 18.

Commentary:

Okay. A few things we should probably take note of from our reading today because they will help us with our day and our week and this brand-new shiny sparkly month that we find ourselves in. Let’s go to the book of Exodus first. The children of Israel have been set free from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. And we watched all of that unfold plague after plague after plague sort of systematically dismantling Egypt. And Pharaoh’s arrogance in believing that he is a deity, that he is divine, that he is a God himself, and who is this Hebrew God that would come. And you can kinda get in his head and understand why he would think this. If he has been raised to believe that he is a child, a son of God, that he is the Pharaoh, like a divine being upon the earth, the king of Egypt, and he has a population of people who are his slaves and this population of people who are his slaves come and say, “our God says that you should let us go.” I mean if you think you are divine yourself then you would be thinking, “well, at bare minimum you are my slaves. Whoever your God is is no way near as powerful as the gods of Egypt or me.” So, we can see him resisting and we can see God just demonstrating His power before them at first but then things definitely begin to take a more serious turn and things amp up all the way until Pharaoh and the Egyptians demand the children of Israel leave, which they did. And then we…we read something really interesting that could really help us in our lives. So, the children of Israel were freed from slavery. They entered the desert because that's…that’s the way to go to the promised land, across the Sinai Peninsula, but God did not lead them by the shortest, easiest coastal route. He led them deeper into the desert. So, in other words, He set them free and did not give them any easy path, did not give them the most straightforward path. There was work to be done in that desert. And we’re in that desert now, right? They’ve crossed the Red Sea and they are on the other side of the Red Sea, but they are in the desert and they are going to be there, and we are going to be there with them for what feels like an awful long time, 40 years to be specific. Actually, even more than that. And, so, we’ll be spending some time in the desert. And this is our desert portion of the year and we need to embrace it because there are so many lessons in the wilderness. And I mean that metaphorically in our lives, but I also mean that literally in the stories that we’ll find in the Bible that come from the wilderness. So, the children of Israel are in the wilderness backed up to the Red Sea when they notice that an army is coming against them. And the closer that tis army gets the more they realize these are the Egyptians. This is the Egyptian Army coming to destroy us and re-enslave. Of course, the Egyptians and Pharaoh after they…after they let the people go, they start imagining the repercussions. This is going to be devastating to their economy because now you have…you have about a million people that are your slaves that have been propping things up that you’ve set free. And, so, they’re reconsidering and hardening their hearts again. And they’re gonna go back and get going back and get the Hebrew people. Meanwhile the Hebrew people are kind of boxed in. It’s the wilderness in front of them, the Red Sea, the ocean behind them and the enemy army is bearing down upon them. We could pause here and just think about seasons in our lives where we have felt trapped and boxed in, like where there is literally no good way to go. The enemy is coming down against us. It’s the sea behind us and the mountains and the wilderness before us. There is no way to escape. And, so, the Hebrew people do basically what we would normally do. They start to complain and gripe about the predicament they’re in because now God has come to set them free and things have only gotten worse again. Do you see a theme emerging, though? Is this not the story of Joseph where when he did everything right things only got worse? So, they’re ready to abandon Moses, see if they can maybe go back to Egypt and become slaves again because that might be better. While here’s this army that’s gonna destroy them. They are trapped. And God speaks to Moses and Moses speaks to the people. The only thing you need to do is shut your mouth and watch this. This enemy that you see today you will never see them again. And that is indeed what happened. And that is indeed something that we should put in our pocket or purse and carry around with us for the next year.

Then we move into the book of Matthew. The religious leadership, we are talking about the clergy, right? We are talking about men of God who are leading the people are getting pretty fed up with Jesus. God in flesh. Like, they do not believe. And, so, they confront Jesus about how…who gave Him permission to do what He’s doing. And, of course, as we have come to notice in the first month of the year Jesus is always going to speak to the truth of the situation. He’s always good to talk to the plot behind the story. He knows that what’s being presented is a mask, that everyone is naked and ashamed and hiding. And, so, He’s like, “well, let me ask you a question.” And He talks about John because they didn’t believe in John either. And, so, Jesus ends up telling the story about a man who had a vineyard and he fixed it all up and got it ready for business, and then he leased it and went away and when a harvest time came he wanted his share of the harvest, but the tenants refused became rebellious, beat up the people who came to collect the harvest on a number of occasions until the master sent is heir, his son to come and collect because he’s the heir, he that…he’s the owner. And, so, they should respect the owner of the vineyard but they don’t. They conspire to kill him, which is what they do. And then Jesus asks the religious leadership what the Masters gonna do. And they immediately answer, “the master is gonna destroy those people.” They were speaking out their own future essentially, because in the story the vineyard is the Kingdom, and the master is the Father, and the Son is Jesus. And this story is an interesting warning about religious dominance. When religion is used to ensnare or entrap or control people then there is no value in it. That might sound bigger than it should. But it’s simply the story that’s coming out of all of the Gospels. The people that were against Jesus were the people of God, God’s leaders who did not recognize that God was doing a new thing in the world and did everything to destroy that new thing including…including killing God, including killing Jesus. God made flesh. So, we should get some clues that this journey we are on as we walk alongside Jesus and listen to what He has to say and watch the away that He operates and observe His character that we may find a bunch of challenges, that we may need to listen to Jesus instead of what we’ve been told about Him, that we might need to press in closer and deeper as we watch the amazing and that’s an understatement…the amazing thing that God had chose to do when He chose to come and rescue people again from slavery. Slavery to the oppressiveness of what was going on around them in their culture and slavery to sin. And we also may need to understand that when we become free we may not be taking the easy road. We may need to go into the wilderness because there is work to do there.

Prayer:

Jesus, we invite You into that because it doesn’t sound like it would be fun. We don’t want to go wander in the wilderness. We felt like we did that all year last year. And yet the thing You are after is our freedom. And we confess that even as we see it in the Scriptures, we see it in our own lives. We fight You on that because it might be hard, it might be difficult. We might have to endure. It may get more difficult, before it gets easier and we don’t like that. We don’t like that. And yet You’ve been very clear all along that there is a narrow path that leads to life and that that is the path that leads to life and few ever find it, but wide is the road to destruction, the easy path. And, so, as we move into this second month, we are inviting Your Holy Spirit to begin to align us with where You’re going, to begin aiming us in the direction we need to head in no matter what it looks like because we as the children of Israel are going to have to learn that there is no other hope outside of You. You are the only hope there is and we must trust You utterly. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, my DAB family this is Truly Thankful Taylor just wanted to say hi tonight. I have three of my little ones with me…2 littles and one teenager. Girls do you wanna say hi? Hi. We’ve been talking about our reading for today in DAB Kids and Chronological and all the different stuff ‘cause all of our family are doing different ones. Some of us are doing all five in English. Some of us are just doing Chronological or kids and we’re just loving God’s word even more but we were talking about having faith as small as a mustard seed that it can move mountains. So, each…two of the girls wanted to pray tonight. So, sister do you want to start? What did you want to share? That people would have faith in God and that people would love God even more and let Him be in their heart. Jesus thank you for the day. Thank you for everything you have done. Thank you for being our God. And I want to…I want people to let you into their heart. In Jesus’ name. Amen. OK sister. Jesus thank you for the day that we have faith in us and faith in Jesus and that everyone starts praying and those who don’t pray now pray. And have Jesus where? In our faith, in their heart. That’s right. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. Love and blessings everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Hi, my name is Luanne from Texas. I just want to say thanks. This journey so far has been so good and so revealing. It’s been so wonderful to watch the creation and then the de-creation and with the New Testament seeing what the recreation could be. I’m just so grateful. I’m grateful for Brian for this. I’m grateful to the community who’s reading it along with me and it’s just been so healing after 2020. I’m just so grateful. So, Lord I just ask that for those who are weary, come. Come to the Bible. Sit with us and learn and you will find much joy. I ask this in our most holy savior’s name, Jesus. Amen.

Good morning fellow DABbers this is Sally in Massachusetts Amazed by Grace it’s January 27^th and I am so thankful this morning that I listened as I do most every day to the DAB and so blessed by the word of God and so encouraged today as we read of Moses and Aaron and pharaoh and the people, how God works through everyone to carry out His plans and purposes. He worked through pharaoh. He worked through Moses. He worked through Moses mother and father. He accomplishes purposes through people and He’s accomplishing His purposes in and through each of us day by day as we yield to Him. And I’m just so thankful that we worship a God of power, a God of a plan, a God with purposes. And I am so thankful that we have this family to worship God together, to encourage and strengthen each other. Thank you, Daughter of the King from Tennessee. I so appreciated your prayers and your thoughts today. And Pamela from Pennsylvania how easy it is. I have also often been guided by fear instead of faith in making decisions. And dear brother McQueen from Utah. Lord we pray Your comfort to this family. Thank You for Betsy Lopez and the wonderful grandma she was to him. We pray Your comfort to this family at this time. And Lord we thank You that although world at times feels like it’s out of control You are God alone from before time began and You are on Your throne because You are God alone. Increase our faith in You Lord we pray and thank You in Jesus’ powerful name.

Hello Daily Audio Bible my name is Gail and I’m calling from Las Vegas. I’m calling in response to a boy that just called in about his grandma, Grandma Lopez who was in a car accident and he wanted to get the word out to us about his grandma. I am so proud of you for the courage that you showed to call in and let us know what happened to your grandma. I felt that you two had an amazing relationship and you were so close. And I bet you miss her. I really know that you miss her because you wanted to make a lasting memory and let us know that she died, and it was important to you to get the word out. So, I applaud your courage sweet boy and I just wanted to say that we hear you and we are praying for you. Keep calling in. Keep calling in. We love to hear from you. Bye for now.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible I’m calling in to speak to Golda McQueen. Young man your courage to send in the message to speak to the people about your grandmother and her legacy of love in your life touched my heart in so many ways to remember my own grandmother. I want to know not only Betsy Lopez will be remembered today for her own life but for the life that she poured into you. And I just want to encourage you with two verses that I thought of when I heard you speaking. Exodus 4:12. So, go Golda. I will be with you. When you speak and I will give you the words to say. And in Acts Jesus himself came to Paul and encouraged him to keep speaking. He said in acts 18 9 and 10 during the night Paul had a vision and the Lord said to him don’t be afraid and don’t stop talking to people I am with you and no one will be able to hurt you. Many of my people are in the city. Heavenly Father I pray You pour out a triple blessing upon Golda McQueen as he goes to the funeral of his grandmother whom he loved so much and wants her to be remembered and it made such an impact to remember my own grandmother I know prayed for me, but I never got to grow up with her. So, I…I thank you Golda. You have touched my heart in ways you’ll never know until we see each other in heaven. God bless you son.

Hello, my name is Richard today is my first day listening in several years. I just listened to February 27^th recording that I was blessed by. Some of you may remember I was Richard from Mississippi back in 2018 I went through a divorce. I moved back home to Arkansas. That’s where I stay at now. I work for my dad part time. I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m trying to get back into reading the word and listening to DAB every morning. So, I covet your prayers that you would pray for me as I establish a new habit and to know the Lord. Bless each and every one of you in Jesus’ name.

Good morning this is Radiant Faith in Georgia. I’m listening on January the 27^th and I just heard a young man from Nevada I believe his name was Golda McQueen. He’s nine years old and he was on his way…I hope I can get this out. He was on his way to his grandma’s funeral. I’m a grandma and this just really touched my heart, the love that he had for her. He said that it’s hard to get messages out from where he lives and he’s only nine years old but let me tell you something, we heard you loud and clear. We heard the love that you had for your grandma and I just pray, and I believe that Jesus let her hear you. Oh, Lord I know she was proud of you.

February 1, 2021

The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Monday February 1, 2021 (NIV)

Exodus 13:17-15:18

¹⁷After Pharaoh sent the people out, God did not take them by the coastal road that runs through the land of the Philistines, even though that was the nearest and easiest route. Instead, God said, “For if they see battle with those contentious Philistines, they might regret their decision and then return to Egypt.” ¹⁸So God chose a different, longer path that led the community of His people through the desert toward the Red Sea. The Israelites marched out of the land of Egypt like an army ready for battle.

¹⁹Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath, “God will certainly come and rescue you. Carry my bones with you when you leave this place.”^[a]

²⁰The people of Israel departed from Succoth and set up camp in Etham at the edge of the desert. ²¹The Eternal went on ahead to guide them during the day in a cloud shaped like a pillar; at night He appeared to them in a fire shaped like a pillar to light their way. So they were able to travel by day and by night. ²²The Eternal did not remove the cloud pillar or the fire pillar; by day and by night it continued to go ahead of the people.

Often clouds and fire signify the presence of God in Scripture; that is especially true here in the Book of Exodus.

14 Eternal One (to Moses): ^1-2Speak to the Israelites and tell them to go back and set up camp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, opposite Baal-zephon. Camp there next to the sea. ³Pharaoh will talk about the Israelites, saying, “They are wandering around in circles. The desert has closed them in on all sides.” ⁴Then I will harden Pharaoh’s stubborn heart even more, and he will pursue the Israelites. Honor will come to Me through the actions of Pharaoh and his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Eternal One.

And so they did exactly as the Eternal instructed.

⁵When Egypt’s king received the news that the Israelites had run away, the attitude of Pharaoh and his servants changed. They began talking among themselves.

Pharaoh’s Servants: What have we done? We have released the Israelites from serving us and lost our labor force!

⁶Pharaoh prepared his chariot and called out his army. ⁷He took a select group of the 600 best chariots in the land plus all the other chariots in Egypt with drivers commanding all of them.

⁸The Eternal hardened the stubborn heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he chased after the Israelites just as they were marching out of the land with victorious hands held high.

⁹The Egyptians pursued the Israelites. All of Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his chariot-drivers and army caught up with the Israelites as they were camping by the sea not far from Pi-hahiroth, opposite Baal-zephon.

¹⁰Pharaoh approached the Israelites’ camp, and the Israelites saw the Egyptian army closing in on them. The Israelites were trapped and feared for their lives, so they cried out to the Eternal.

Israelites (to Moses): ¹¹Were there not enough graves in Egypt? Is that why you brought us out here to die in the desert? Why have you done this to us? Why have you made us leave Egypt? ¹²Didn’t we tell you in Egypt, “Stop pestering us so that we can get on with our lives and serve the Egyptians”? It would have been better for us to live as slaves to the Egyptians than to die out here in the desert.

Moses (to the people): ¹³Don’t be afraid! Stand your ground and witness how the Eternal will rescue you today. Take a good look at the Egyptians, for after today you will never see them again. ¹⁴The Eternal will fight on your behalf while you watch in silence.

Eternal One (to Moses): ¹⁵Why do you call for Me? Instruct the Israelites to break camp and keep moving. ¹⁶Raise your staff and reach out over the sea to divide it. The Israelites will be able to walk straight through the sea on dry ground. ^17-18I am going to harden the stubborn hearts of the Egyptians, and in their arrogance they will continue to chase the Israelites. My honor will be on display when I defeat Pharaoh, his army, his chariots, and his chariot-drivers. The Egyptians will know that I am the Eternal when I display my glory through Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot-drivers.

¹⁹God’s messenger, who had been out front leading the people of Israel, moved to protect the rear of the company; the cloud pillar moved with him from the front to the back of them. ²⁰The cloud pillar took its position between Egypt’s and Israel’s camps. The cloud cast darkness by day yet it lit up the sky by night. As a result, the Egyptians never got close to the Israelites the entire night. ²¹Moses then took his staff and reached out over the sea. The Eternal parted the sea with a strong east wind, which blew all night and turned the floor of the sea into dry ground between the divided waters. ²²The Israelites broke camp and traveled on dry ground through the parted waters, and the sea stood like a solid wall on their right and on their left.

²³The Egyptians were undaunted. They continued their pursuit; all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot-drivers followed the Israelites into the middle of the sea.

²⁴Before daybreak the Eternal peered down upon the Egyptian army through the fire pillar and the cloud pillar and threw them all into confusion. ²⁵He caused the wheels of their chariots to break down so that it was nearly impossible for the drivers to control them. The Egyptians knew something was wrong.

Egyptians: Let’s go and get away from these Israelites. Their God, the Eternal One, is fighting for them against us.

²⁶After all the Israelites had reached the other side of the sea, the Eternal spoke to Moses.

Eternal One (to Moses): Now take your staff and reach out over the sea. The waters which I parted will crash upon the Egyptians and cover their chariots and chariot-drivers.

²⁷So Moses raised his hand and reached out over the sea, and the walls of water collapsed. As dawn gave way to morning, the sea returned to normal and the Eternal swept the retreating Egyptian army into the sea. ²⁸The waters rushed and covered all the chariots and their drivers, swallowing up all of Pharaoh’s army that had pursued Israel into the sea. Not one Egyptian survived.

²⁹But the Israelites had walked safely through the parted waters on dry ground, and the sea stood like a solid wall on their right and on their left. ³⁰That day the Eternal rescued Israel from the powerful grip of the Egyptians, and Israel watched the corpses of the Egyptians wash up on the shore. ³¹When Israel witnessed the incredible power that the Eternal used to defeat the Egyptians, the people were struck with fear of Him, and they trusted in Him and also in Moses, His servant.

Throughout this redemption story, it is clear that the Lord has protected Israel while He has judged and frustrated Egypt. After the many wonders before the Passover and the miraculous guidance by the cloud and the pillar of fire, God destroyed the Egyptian army in the midst of the sea. For centuries people have sought to explain this great miracle and make sense of it. Was it a volcanic eruption and a tsunami that parted the waters? Was it a shallow lake that drowned Pharaoh’s army? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Only God knows. But reason cannot grasp all that took place that day. When God’s covenant people were on the verge of extinction, God stepped in to fight for them. No one survived that day except by the miraculous grace of God.

15 Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Eternal One.

Moses and the Israelites: I will sing to the Eternal, for He has won a great victory;
He has thrown the chariot into the sea: horse and rider.
²The Eternal is my strength and my song,
and He has come to save me;
He is my God, and I will praise Him.
He is the God of my father, and I will exalt Him.
³The Eternal is a warrior;
the Eternal is His name.
⁴Pharaoh’s chariots and his army He has thrown into the sea.
And his high-ranking officers are drowned in the Red Sea.
⁵The deep waters covered them;
they sank to the muddy depths like a stone.
⁶Your right hand, Eternal One, is magnificent in power.
Your right hand, Eternal, vanquishes the enemy.
⁷In Your majestic greatness You conquer those who rise against You;
You unleash Your burning anger, and it consumes them like straw.
⁸With a blast of Your anger the waters piled high,
the waves stood up like a wall;
in the heart of the sea, deep waters turned solid.
⁹The enemy said, “I will go after them, chase them down, and divide the spoils;
my desire will be spent on them.
I will draw my sword; my powerful hand will take possession of them once again.”
¹⁰But You blew Your breath-wind, and the sea covered them;
they sank like lead down into the mighty waters.
¹¹Who compares to You among the gods, O Eternal?
Who compares to You—great in holiness,
awesome in praises, performing marvels and wonders?
¹²You raised Your right hand,
and the earth swallowed Your enemies.
¹³With Your loyal love, You have led the people You have redeemed;
with Your great strength, You have guided them to Your sacred dwelling.
¹⁴Already people have heard and they tremble;
those who inhabit Philistia are gripped by fear.
¹⁵Even now the chiefs of Edom are deeply disturbed;
Moab’s leaders cannot stop trembling;
all who live in Canaan are deeply distressed and wasting away.
¹⁶Horror and fear overwhelm them.
Faced with the greatness of Your power,
people are afraid to move; they fall as silent as stone,
Until Your people pass by, Eternal One,
until the people whom You purchased pass by.
¹⁷You will bring them and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance—
the place, Eternal, that You have designated to be Your dwelling,
the sanctuary, Lord, that Your hands founded and made ready.
¹⁸The Eternal will reign as King forever and always.

Footnotes:

13:19 Genesis 50:25

The Voice (VOICE)

Matthew 21:23-46

²³Jesus returned to the temple and began to teach. The chief priests and elders came to Him and wanted to know who had given Him permission to disturb the temple precincts and to teach His crazy notions in this most sacred of spots.

Chief Priests and Elders: Who gave You the authority to do these things?

Jesus: ²⁴I will answer your question if first you answer one of Mine: ²⁵You saw John ritually cleansing people through baptism^[a] for the redemption of their sins. Did John’s cleansing come from heaven, or was he simply washing people of his own whim?

The elders knew that this question was tricky; there was no simple answer. If they acknowledged that John’s ritual cleansing was from heaven, Jesus would ask why they had not accepted John’s authority. ²⁶But if they said he had dipped people simply by his own accord, they would outrage the people who believed John was a prophet.

Chief Priests and Elders: ²⁷We don’t know.

Jesus: Then neither will I tell you about the authority under which I am working. ²⁸But I will tell you a story, and you can tell Me what you make of it: There was a man who had two sons. He said to his first son,

Father: Go and work in the vineyard today.

First Son: ²⁹No, I will not.

But later the first son changed his mind and went. ³⁰Then the father went to his second son.

Father: Go and work in the vineyard today.

Second Son: Of course, Father.

But then he did not go. ³¹So which of the sons did what the father wanted?

Chief Priests and Elders (answering at once): The first.

Jesus: I tell you this: the tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²John came to show you the straight path, the path to righteousness. You did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. Even as you saw the prostitutes and the tax collectors forgiven and washed clean, finding their footing on the straight path to righteousness, still you did not change your ways and believe.

³³Here is another story: A landowner planted a vineyard, put a wall around it, fitted it with a winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard and left town. ³⁴When harvesttime came, the landowner sent his servants to collect rent—in the form of grapes—from his tenants. ³⁵The tenants attacked these rent-collecting servants. They killed one, stoned another, and beat a third. ³⁶The dismayed landowner sent another band of servants to try to collect his due, a larger group of servants this time, but the tenants did the same thing—capturing, beating, killing. ³⁷Finally the landowner sent his son to the tenants, thinking, “They will at least respect my son.” ³⁸But the tenants knew the son was the best way to get to the landowner, so when they saw the son approaching they said,

Tenants: This is the landowner’s heir apparent! Let’s kill him and take his inheritance.

³⁹And so they did; they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

⁴⁰What do you think the landowner will do when he comes and sees those tenants?

Chief Priests and Elders: ⁴¹He will eviscerate them, to be sure! Then he will rent the vineyard to other tenants who will pay him at harvesttime.

Jesus: ⁴²I wonder if any of you has ever opened your own psalter:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very stone that holds together the entire foundation.
This is the work of the Eternal One,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.^[b]

⁴³Therefore, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to people who will tend its sweet fruit and who will give the Creator His due. [⁴⁴He who falls on the stone will be broken to pieces, and he on whom the stone falls will be crushed.]^[c]

Jesus has just confronted the spiritual leaders of the land with hard reality. They have two choices: they can believe Him and repent, or they can disbelieve Him and call His stories rabble-rousing and craziness. In their minds, the cost of believing is just too high. Everything they have—their positions and standings in the community, their worldviews, their own images of themselves—is at stake. But they can’t openly condemn this popular teacher of the people.

⁴⁵And so the chief priests and the Pharisees, the teachers and the elders, knew that when Jesus told these stories He was speaking about them. ⁴⁶Not believing, they looked for a way to arrest Him—a stealthy way, though. They were afraid to make too bold a move against Him because all the people believed He was a prophet.

Footnotes:

21:25 Literally, immersing, an act of repentance
21:42 Psalm 118:22–23
21:44 Some manuscripts omit verse 44.

The Voice (VOICE)

Psalm 26

A song of David.

¹Declare my innocence, O Eternal One!
I have walked blamelessly down this path.
I placed my trust in the Eternal and have yet to stumble.
²Put me on trial and examine me, O Eternal One!
Search me through and through—from my deepest longings to every thought that crosses my mind.
³Your unfailing love is always before me;
I have journeyed down Your path of truth.

A great theme throughout the psalms is the experience of coming before God. This Davidic psalm affirms the integrity of the worshiper before the Lord even while pleading for God’s mercy.

⁴My life is not wasted among liars;
my days are not spent among cheaters.
⁵I despise every crowd intent on evil;
I do not commune with the wicked.

⁶I wash my hands in the fountain of innocence
so that I might join the gathering that surrounds Your altar, O Eternal One.
⁷From my soul, I will join the songs of thanksgiving;
I will sing and proclaim Your wonder and mystery.

⁸Your house, home to Your glory, O Eternal One, radiates its light.
I am fixed on this place and long to be nowhere else.
⁹When Your wrath pursues those who oppose You,
those swift to sin and thirsty for blood,
spare my soul and grant me life.
¹⁰These men hold deceit in their left hands,
and in their right hands, bribery and lies.

¹¹But God, I have walked blamelessly down this path,
and this is my plea for redemption.
This is my cry for Your mercy.
¹²Here I stand secure and confident
before all the people; I will praise the Eternal.

The Voice (VOICE)

Proverbs 6:16-19

¹⁶Take note, there are six things the Eternal hates;
no, make it seven He abhors:
¹⁷Eyes that look down on others, a tongue that can’t be trusted,
hands that shed innocent blood,
¹⁸A heart that conceives evil plans,
feet that sprint toward evil,
¹⁹A false witness who breathes out lies,
and anyone who stirs up trouble among the faithful.

The Voice (VOICE)

January 31, 2021

01/31/2021 DAB Transcript

Exodus 12:14-13:16, Matthew 20:29-21:22, Psalms 25:16-22, Proverbs 6:12-15

Today is the 31^st day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you as we end and begin, right? So, we’re ending the first month of the year. Can you believe that exactly one month ago was December 31^st and we were at the end of the year and just getting ready to launch on to this journey? Now we are a month in. It’s gone quick, and there’s a lot…a lot that we have learned and I just…I mean the new year…I need…I needed the new year to come. And I think a lot of people did too, and I’m just really encouraged by what the Scriptures are speaking into our lives as we continue. So, we’re just marking this moment where we reached the end of our first month. Today’s reading will end that first month and tomorrow we’ll be in the second month of the year. And it just goes and goes quickly, but it also goes at the pace that it needs to go out. So, I just want to tell you, well done. I mean we’ve been at…this is 31 days we can do this. If we’ve made it this far, we can…we can make this journey work. And, so, let’s dive in. This is a brand-new shiny sparkly week that we are walking into and we will read from the Voice Translation this week, picking up the story of…well…Moses and Pharaoh and the enslaved Hebrew people. And God’s full intention that is people are not going to be slaves anymore. And, so, we begin. Exodus chapter 12 verse 14 through 13 verse 16.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You, we thank You for Your word and we thank You for bringing us through this first full month in Your word for this voyage, the voyage of 2021. And we are…we have set sail and we are well on our way and we are grateful for the shifting that is beginning to take place. Like it's…it’s starting to become a rhythm and we’re starting to feel like we can do this and we’re a part of something. We are grateful for that. We invite Your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. This is one of the promises of the Scriptures, that You would lead us into all truth. That is what we are asking for, that is what we seek, that You would lead us on the pathways of truth, that You would lead us on what Jesus called the narrow path that leads to life, that we would embrace wisdom as…as a best friend and that we would walk the pathways of wisdom. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

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Check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop. There are a whole plethora of resources that are available there, some things that are just…just pure fun but some things that are pure fun but also productive and things to take this journey deeper, things to listen to, things to read. So, check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop. If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if…if the mission that we hold in common to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered freely to anyone who will listen to it anywhere on this planet any time of day or night, and to build community around that rhythm, because it is a rhythm and it’s not a solitary one, it's…it’s a communal one, if that has made a difference to you than thank you for your partnership. There is a link that lives on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, my name is Desiree I’m a 13-year-old girl. I’ve been studying and recently found out my mom was a drug addict and now that I’ve seen so many things pass during my life when I was taken away from her at the age of 6 years old and went to my aunt and uncle’s house which are now my new parents because I got adopted from them and I’ve been going through some rough times because of all the things that my mother has done like when I recently found out that she was a drug addict I just broke down and started crying and I…I couldn’t believe what she did an…and the fact is that she wants to bring me or some other people and that…that’s not really our fault and the fact is that she doesn’t care. And I just wish that everything was the same, but I just asked for prayer that she just helps us. I mean God help us and please pray help and thank you.

Hey guys it’s your brother from Indiana I’m just calling to just…just out of greatness just out of all the awesome __ right now. I just heard that Sean has recently came to Christ, you know, just this past year. He said he got baptized last Sunday. He’s been reading the Bible. I just pray encouraging… just that…that…that the Holy Spirit would encourage you. Man that…that’s amazing. I’m so glad and I’m so glad you’re, you know, I’m just really glad and I pray a special blessings upon you and your future. You say you may want to go on mission trips. God’s will be done. May you have eyes and ears to hear that. Also, By God’s Grace I didn’t hear the last part of that but Covid and breast cancer. That is a really traumatic experience, but you have the faith to know that God is our great physician. I pray that your family have increased faith, you would recognize the blessings around you being your family three beautiful daughters and I pray __ for your whole family, your husband, and man or girl, I…I’m sorry. Just blessings and for anyone that has depression especially teenagers, I’m just praying for you today that your eyes be lifted to God the maker of the heavens and the earth in Jesus’ name I’m praying. Thank you, guys. And girls. I love you.

Hi DAB family I have never actually called before but I did hear a prayer from By Your Grace Sherry and I just wanted to let you know that sometimes when we pray for God to increase our faith, He puts us in situations that essentially force us to have faith in Him that He will put us through. There is so much power in faith that we…that God wants us to be able to tap into. There is so much love and passion and Satan definitely wants to keep us from all of that. So, I just wanted to say keep on going. Sometimes what we ask for is certainty in faith rather than actual faith, but I will pray for you and I do hope that God will God will show you some amazing things during this time that you are, that you have to lean on him in order to get through this. So, I’ll be praying for you.

Hello everybody my name is Josh and I’ve been listening for several years. I’ve never called because honestly, I rarely listen to the prayer request and the only reason I was listening today was because it was one of those rare occasions where I was actually running and I just couldn’t reach my phone but as I was listening I heard Zealand Isabel from Georgia and they were so moved by her story I literally stopped in my tracks. She was explaining that she has a brain problem and that it has affected her right side and she has trouble with seizures and that she is looking for prayer from the Daily Audio Bible community. Zealand Isabel if you’re listening, I want to tell you something about my family. I have two daughters on this earth. The oldest is 4 years old and was a twin. She and her sister were born really early, so early that one didn’t make it out of the hospital, and she is with Jesus. Now the other one or the one who’s for now, had a brain bleed that, like you, affected her right side. Today she would tell you that her right side just moves a little different, but I see how hard she works every day on things that I would otherwise take for granted. And I am sure that you work hard every day as well. I pray for my daughter each morning, that she would be healed but also that she would be strong and would know Jesus more she grows up. I pray for her to be like you. I want you to know for sure that you are strong, and I will be praying for you along with my daughter every day. I speak healing over you from the one who made you and pray blessings on you.

Hi, Macy here from Texas and…and I’m a new listener. I just turned 6 and I wanted to say I listen to you… to your bibles… to your Bible…to the Bible stories that you read to us so I…so I would…so I would like…so today I’m also listening to one too. So, and I love them too and I just wanted to say that. So, bye.

Hello this is Donna from California and recently a couple of people have called in that I just really, really some calls really touch you very deeply, they all do but these in particular did for me. There was a lady who called, and she has since had a lot of response. A lady who called in and said she had Covid and her husband had left her after 47 years of marriage. This broke my heart. And then another lady, Amy, from Canada called recently just expressing the loneliness and the…I too, didn’t sign up to be single. I…I actually had been married. My marriage fell apart about 10 years ago. And I…I didn’t sign up to be single. It’s very difficult and then I understand people who are well meaning will quote things like “my grace is sufficient for you” and “delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart”, which are very well meaning and very true, but often it just rings hollow because sometimes that comes from people who are blessed with a good marriage. Not to sound bitter. But I just want to offer a quick prayer because I only have like less than 30 seconds. Dear Lord help…help those of us in this situation to believe you. Help us to really search deeply. What are the desires of my heart? My…my desires are for you. And why would I place them anywhere else? I don’t know if that helps but I pray for you and I love you. Thank you for calling.

January 31, 2021

The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Sunday January 31, 2021 (NIV)

Exodus 12:14-13:16

¹⁴This will be a day for you to always remember. I want you and all generations after you to commemorate this day with a festival to Me. Celebrate this feast as a perpetual ordinance, a permanent part of your life together. ¹⁵You are to eat bread made without yeast for seven days. On the first day get rid of any yeast you find in your house. Anyone who eats bread made with yeast during the seven festival days must be cut off from the rest of Israel. ¹⁶On the first day of the festival and again on the seventh, gather the community together for a time of sacred worship. No one may work on those two days except to prepare what every person needs to eat. ¹⁷Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread because it commemorates the day that I led your forces out of Egypt. Honor and celebrate this day throughout all your generations as a perpetual ordinance, a permanent part of your life together. ¹⁸From the evening of the fourteenth day of that first month to the evening of the twenty-first day of that month, eat bread made without yeast. ^19-20No yeast is to be found in any of your houses during the seven festival days. Whoever eats anything that has yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. It doesn’t matter whether he is a foreigner or a native; the same standards apply. During the seven festival days, do not eat anything made with yeast; wherever you live and gather together, be sure you eat only unleavened bread.

²¹Then Moses called all of Israel’s elders together and gave them instructions.

Moses: Go and pick out lambs for each of your families, and then slaughter your family’s Passover lamb. ²²Take a handful of hyssop branches, dip them down into the bowl of blood you drained from the sacrifice, and mark the top of the doorway and the two doorposts with blood from the bowl. After you do this, no one should go out that door until the next morning.

²³The Eternal will pass through the land during the night and bring death to the Egyptians. But when He sees the blood-markings across the tops of your doorways and down your two doorposts, He will pass over your houses and not allow His messenger of death to enter into your houses and strike you down. ²⁴You and all your descendants are obligated to keep these instructions for all time. ²⁵Even after you arrive in the land the Eternal has promised you—the land flowing with milk and honey—you must keep these instructions and perform this ritual. ²⁶When your children ask you, “What does this ritual mean to you?” ²⁷you will answer them, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Eternal, for He passed over the houses of the Israelites when we were slaves in Egypt. And although He struck the Egyptians, He spared our lives and our houses.”

The name of this festival, “Passover,” comes from the fact that God “passes over” those houses where the Israelites gather and eat the sacrifice.

When Moses finished these instructions, the people bowed down and worshiped.

²⁸The Israelites went and did as they were instructed; they were obedient to what the Eternal had commanded Moses and Aaron.

²⁹Now this is what happened: at midnight, He struck down all the firstborn sons in Egypt—from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn son of the prisoners locked in the dungeon, and even the firstborn of all the livestock in the land. ³⁰Pharaoh woke up during the night. He wasn’t the only one. His servants, as well as all of the Egyptians in the land, had awoken. A great scream shattered the night in Egypt, for there was not a single Egyptian house where someone was not dead.

³¹Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron before the night was over.

Pharaoh (to Moses and Aaron): Get up and get out. Leave my people right now—you and all the rest of the Israelites. Go and worship this god of yours, the Eternal One, just as you have said. ³²Take your flocks and your herds as well with you—just as you said—and go! But bless me on your way out!

Pharaoh hates to admit he has been beaten by Moses and his God. After losing his firstborn son—destined to be the next Pharaoh—he has little choice.

³³The Egyptians frantically urged the people of Israel to hurry and leave their land.

Egyptians (imploring): If you do not leave soon, we will all be dead.

³⁴So the Israelites hurried. They took their bread dough before any yeast had been added, packed up their kneading bowls, wrapped them in some of their clothing, and carried them on their shoulders.

³⁵The people of Israel also did what Moses had told them to do; they asked the Egyptians for items made of silver and gold, and they asked for extra clothing as well. ³⁶The Eternal caused the Egyptians to have a favorable attitude toward His people, so the Egyptians fulfilled these requests and gave the people what they asked for. This is how the Israelites stripped the Egyptians of their valued possessions.

For many years the Egyptians stripped the people of Israel of their lives, labor, and dignity. God’s justice demands that Israel be paid for all they lost.

³⁷The Israelites left and traveled from Rameses to Succoth. There were about 600,000 men, plus all the women and children. ³⁸Another crowd, made up of various and sundry peoples, accompanied them, as well as herds, flocks, and a great number of livestock. ³⁹They baked flat bread along the way from the dough without yeast which they carried with them from Egypt. The dough had no yeast because the people had been rushed out of Egypt, and they did not have enough time to gather food supplies for themselves.

^40-41The Israelites had lived in the land of Egypt for a total of 430 years. On the last day of their 430th year, all the forces belonging to the Eternal left the land of Egypt. ⁴²This was the night when the Eternal kept watch over His people and brought them safely out of the land of Egypt; now this night is to be kept by His people, to be celebrated by all of the people of Israel throughout all generations.

Eternal One (to Moses and Aaron): ⁴³This is the requirement for Passover: no foreigner or outsider should eat this meal. ⁴⁴But every slave bought with money may participate in this celebration if he has been initiated into the community by circumcision. ⁴⁵No temporary residents or paid servants may share in it. ⁴⁶The meal must be eaten in only one house. Don’t take any of the meat outside. Not one of the lamb’s bones shall be broken.^[a] ⁴⁷The entire community of Israel must celebrate it. ⁴⁸If you have outsiders living among you and they want to celebrate the Passover to the Eternal with you, then all the men must agree to be circumcised. Only after circumcision may they join in and celebrate with you; then you must treat them as if they were native-born. But make sure no uncircumcised male eats any part of the sacred meal. ⁴⁹The same instruction applies to everyone equally—without distinction—the native as well as the outsider who is living among you.

⁵⁰Then all of the Israelites did exactly as the Eternal had instructed Moses and Aaron to do. ⁵¹On that same day, He led the Israelites as they marched out of the land of Egypt like an army.

This night is still remembered by Jewish people each year during the festival called Passover. The exodus—God’s liberation of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt—is one of the most important events in all Scripture. For over 400 years, God’s covenant people lived as outsiders in Egypt. For as long as that last generation could remember, they had been slaves living embittered lives under a cruel regime. But God heard their cries and acted finally and decisively to rescue them. Now it is time to go home, to a land they have never seen, a land of promise and prosperity. They return not as slaves but as free people, a powerful force for God in the world. The exodus leaves a permanent mark on the people of Israel. It is celebrated in song, recorded in Scripture, and commemorated in a festival; the prophets even see a day when a new exodus is coming.

13 Eternal One (to Moses): ^1-2Set apart all of the firstborn and dedicate them to Me. The first male offspring—both human and animal—that opens the womb among the people of Israel belongs to me.

Moses (to the people): ³Remember this day, the day when you departed from Egypt and left behind lives of slavery. For the strong hand of the Eternal has freed you from Pharaoh and his Egypt. In observing this day, be careful not to eat any food containing yeast. ⁴You are leaving today in the month of Abib. ⁵When He leads you into the land which He promised your ancestors He would give to you—a wide, open space flowing with milk and honey, a land currently inhabited by the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Amorites, and Jebusites—I want you to observe the following festival during this month: ⁶For seven days, you are to eat only bread made without yeast. On the seventh day, celebrate a feast in honor of the Eternal. ⁷Remember the directive: only bread made without yeast can be eaten during the seven festival days. Don’t keep any bread with yeast around; in fact, get rid of all yeast anywhere in your territory during those days. ⁸You are to explain to your children on that day, “We observe this feast because of what the Eternal did for me when I came out of Egypt.” ⁹This festival will be a sign to you—like a mark stamped on the back of your hand or a reminder written across your forehead—so that the Eternal’s instruction will never be far from your lips. For He led you out of Egypt with a strong hand. ¹⁰Observe what I have decreed at the designated time every year.

¹¹The Eternal will lead you into the land He promised you and your ancestors—the land where the Canaanites are now living. ¹²You are to dedicate to Him every offspring that opens the womb—your firstborn sons and the firstborn male of all your livestock—for they belong to Him. ¹³You may redeem every firstborn of a donkey by sacrificing a lamb in its place. If you choose not to redeem it, then you must break its neck. But you must redeem all of your firstborn sons and not sacrifice them.

¹⁴There will come a time when your children ask you, “What is this thing we are doing?” You will say, “With a strong hand the Eternal led us out of Egypt and freed us from lives of slavery. ¹⁵When Pharaoh’s heart was as hard as stone, and he refused to release us, the Eternal killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt (both humans and animals). That is why I sacrifice the firstborn male of all our livestock to Him, but then I redeem every firstborn son by sacrificing a substitute.”

¹⁶These practices will be like a mark stamped on the back of your hand and a reminder written across your forehead, a constant reminder that the Eternal led us out of Egypt with a strong hand.

Footnotes:

12:46 John 19:36

The Voice (VOICE)

Matthew 20:29-21:22

²⁹So finally Jesus and His disciples left Jericho and headed for Jerusalem; and, of course, a large crowd followed them. ³⁰Two blind men, sitting on the roadside, heard the crowd approaching with Jesus.

Two Blind Men: Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!

³¹The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted louder.

Two Blind Men: Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!

Jesus (taking the two blind men aside): ³²What is it that you want, brothers?

Two Blind Men: ³³Lord, we want to see.

³⁴Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they could see, and so they followed Him.

After a great parade, Jesus and His disciples walk into the temple area, and what He sees enrages Him. He sees moneychangers, buying and selling. He sees men sitting on benches, hawking doves to those who have come from the countryside to make a sacrifice. He sees that the salesmen and teachers have turned a sanctuary of worship into a place of spiritual prostitution. This is the place where Jesus came as a boy to sit with the great teachers. It is the place where His Father receives the offerings of His people. It is more than Jesus can take.

Can anyone be surprised at this other side to Jesus? He has turned out to be not just a kindly teacher; instead, He is the Anointed One, not to be taken lightly. In the midst of this scene filled with joy and chaos, there are extremes. Some are beginning to understand who this man from Galilee is—the Anointed—but the rulers are having great difficulty with the disruption to their orderly world.

21 Jesus, the disciples, and the great crowds were heading toward Jerusalem when they came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Jesus stopped and beckoned to two of the disciples.

Jesus: ²Go to the village over there. There you’ll find a donkey tied to a post and a foal beside it. Untie them and bring them to Me. ³If anyone tries to stop you, then tell him, “The Master needs these,” and he will send the donkey and foal immediately.

⁴He sent the disciples on ahead so His entry into Jerusalem could fulfill what the prophet Zechariah had long since foretold:

⁵Tell this to Zion’s daughter,
“Look—your King is approaching,
seated humbly on a donkey,
a young foal, a beast of burden.”^[a]

⁶So the disciples went off and followed Jesus’ instructions. ⁷They brought the donkey and foal to Jesus, they spread their cloaks on the animals, and Jesus sat down on them. ⁸The great crowd followed suit, laying their cloaks on the road. Others cut leafy branches from the trees and scattered those before Jesus. ⁹And the crowds went before Jesus, walked alongside Him, and processed behind—all singing.

Crowd: Hosanna, praises to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Eternal One! Hosanna in the highest!^[b]

The way Jesus enters the city on a lowly donkey, with crowds surrounding Him singing praises, surprises many within Jerusalem.

¹⁰And that is how Jesus came into Jerusalem. The people noticed this strange parade. They wondered who this could be, this humble bearded man on a donkey who incited such songs.

Crowd: ¹¹This is Jesus, the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.

¹²Jesus came to the temple. He drove out all those who were buying and selling. He upended the moneychangers’ tables and the dove-sellers’ benches.

Jesus: ¹³It is written, “My house will be a house of prayer for all people,” but you have turned this house of prayer into a den of robbers.^[c]

¹⁴Then the blind and the lame came to the temple, and Jesus healed them. ¹⁵Rings of children circled round and sang, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” But the priests and scribes didn’t understand. When they saw the upturned tables, the walking paralytics, and the singing children, they were shocked, indignant, and angry, and they did not understand.

Priests and Scribes: ¹⁶Do you hear what these children are saying?

Jesus: Yes. Haven’t you read your own psalter? “From the mouths and souls of infants and toddlers, the most innocent, You have decreed praises for Yourself.”^[d]

¹⁷At that, Jesus left Jerusalem. He went to Bethany, where He spent the night.

¹⁸The next morning, Jesus went back to the city. It was early and He was wanting breakfast, so ¹⁹He stopped at a lone fig tree by the road. The fig tree, disappointingly, had no figs, only leaves.

Jesus: May you never bear fruit again!

Immediately the tree shriveled up. ²⁰The disciples were amazed.

Disciples: How did that fig tree wither so quickly?

Jesus: ²¹I tell you this: if you have faith and do not doubt, then you will be able to wither a fig tree with one glance. You will be able to tell mountains to throw themselves into the ocean, and they will obey.

As Jesus says this, one or two disciples probably glance around the shadows of the early morning, confused and afraid. Jesus has just paraded into Jerusalem and upset the vendors and leaders with His bold talk. Now He is challenging His disciples to expect the physical creation to respond to their commands and faith. But Jesus isn’t finished.

Jesus: ²²If you believe, whatever you ask for in prayer will be granted.

Footnotes:

The Voice (VOICE)

Psalm 25:16-22

¹⁶QUIETLY turn Your eyes to me and be compassionate toward me
because I am lonely and persecuted.
¹⁷RAPIDLY my heart beats as troubles build on the horizon.
Come relieve me from these threats.
¹⁸SEE my troubles and my misery,
and forgive all my sins.
¹⁹TAKE notice of my enemies.
See how there are so many of them
who hate me and would seek my violent destruction.
²⁰Watch over my soul,
and let me face shame and defeat
UNASHAMED because You are my refuge.
²¹May honor and strong character keep me safe.
VIGILANTLY I wait for You, hoping, trusting.

²²Save Israel from all its troubles,
O True God.

The Voice (VOICE)

Proverbs 6:12-15

Laziness is not just a bad habit; it’s a threat—a clear and present danger. Since the beginning, God has made us in His image to create and tend His good creation. In other words, God has made us to work. It is in our spiritual DNA. We must do it in order to be who God made us and to fight off the threats of poverty and want. God has also created the Sabbath as a space for us to rest, of course, just as He rested on the seventh day.

¹²Someone who struts around taking advantage of unsuspecting souls
and deceiving others is to be avoided.
¹³With a wink of his eye, a quick shuffle of his feet,
and a slight gesture with his hand, he signals his roguish treachery.
¹⁴With a warped mind and twisted heart, he constantly looks for his own gain at others’ expense,
causing friction everywhere he goes.
¹⁵But you watch: his actions will bring sudden disaster!
In an instant, his life will be shattered,
and there will be nothing to save him.

The Voice (VOICE)

January 30, 2021

01/30/2021 DAB Transcript

Exodus 10:1-12:13, Matthew 20:1-28, Psalms 25:1-15, Proverbs 6:6-11

Today is the 30th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian. It’s great to be here with you. Man…we are that close to the end of the first month, right? Tomorrow…well…tomorrow’s the last day of January. So, yeah, we’re rounding the corner on our first month together. It’s hard to believe but that’s how quick it goes. And I never get to this point in the in the month of January where I don’t look back and go, man so much as happened in the Bible, so much has been said. Like, we just launched out of the gate and the Bible just goes right after our hearts and has given us so much already. And I’m so excited for the journey ahead. And let’s dive in. We’ve been reading from the English Standard Version this week, which is what we’ll do today. Exodus chapter 10 verse 1 through 12 verse 13.

Commentary:

Okay. Let’s talk for just a second about what we read in the book of Matthew and just come back up alongside Jesus as He’s ministering and He began His teaching today by saying something that we should pay attention to because it’s something that we should be looking for, “for the kingdom of heaven is like.” When Jesus says that we should pay attention to what He’s saying because we are looking for this kingdom of heaven that we claim to be a part of. So, He’s like, “the kingdom of heaven is like a master of the house.” And then He tells a story. A landowner goes into the marketplace to hire day laborers to work in his fields and they make an agreement in the morning about a certain price that they will receive and then those people go to work. And then the master then goes back out into the marketplace and finds people over the course of the day, even getting to the end of the day sending them into the field to work. And then at the end of the day they all get paid the same. And then those who had agreed to the denarius and got paid the denarius are angry because they feel like they worked harder than anybody else. When the master simply says, “yeah but didn’t we make…like you got exactly what you agreed to. So, now you’re trying to judge my generosity. Do I not get to do with the resources that belong to me what I want to do with them? So, if I want to be generous then I can be generous. This story can be a little bit disruptive because it’s like well that doesn’t seem exactly fear. Like I kinda get the…I kinda get the point of the people who worked out in the hot sun all day. It’s supposed to do that. Like the story is supposed to be disruptive because it shows us how easily we can sit in judgment of God because the master in this story is the God figure in this story. We know this because Jesus started out describing the kingdom of heaven is like, right? And then we pay attention to what it’s like. What we find is that the fortunate thing is to be able to come into the field at all no matter what time of day we got there. And God wanting to be generous reveals to us that nobodies better than anybody else in the kingdom of God, which is very different than the…the world system or the cultures that we live in because we inflate people and throw people up and worship people and admire success even if it’s ruthless success. In God’s kingdom there’s not this hierarchy where you get the mansion up on the hill looking down on the people who were sinners until their last breath who just barely get to get into God’s kingdom. That’s not how this works. In is in all the way. And for all of the things that we like to spout off about what God does and does not do, what he will and will not do, this story shows us that we don’t have that say. God can do what God wills to do no matter what. He’s the most-high God. Everything is His. Everything in all of creation is His, which leads us to what Jesus ended the story with. The last will be first and the first will be last. We have plenty to explore about the kingdom of God from the lips of Jesus as we navigate through the Gospels, but every time that we come to this talk of the kingdom, we should pay attention because it all begins to fit together. And the way that the kingdom works is very different than the way the systems we have designed as humans work. And what we should be understanding is that Jesus is God made flesh modeling what humanity without sin is…is capable of and is supposed to look like. And He is describing the kingdom that was intended to be upon this earth as His children. And He will claim that it’s still here, but it’s actually really here now and happening. And if we would have eyes to see and ears to hear, we would be able to see that. So, anytime we hear Jesus talking about the kingdom of heaven is like something, let’s have eyes to see and ears to hear. It’s an important part of our journey. It’s vital that we understand what we are actually a part of instead of continuing to navigate through life believing that we have faith, but having no idea about why it works one day and doesn’t work another day and how to actually make this something that’s a part of who we are. What we begin to understand going through the Gospels and listening to Jesus and then into the writings of the apostle Paul is that it’s different than what we think and more immediate than we could ever imagine.

Prayer:

Jesus, we…we invite Your Holy Spirit as we continue in the days and weeks and months ahead of us, as we continue to move through the Scriptures, that You would plant them deep in our hearts, change the way that we look at things that we might be actively participating and the transformation that…that is happening in us known as sanctification. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

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January 30, 2021

The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Saturday January 30, 2021 (NIV)

Exodus 10:1-12:13

The Eighth Plague: Locusts

10 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them, ²and ^(A)that you may tell in the hearing of your son and of your grandson how I have dealt harshly with the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them, ^(B)that you may know that I am the Lord.”

³So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to ^(C)humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. ⁴For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring ^(D)locusts into your country, ⁵and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land. And they shall ^(E)eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field, ⁶and they shall fill ^(F)your houses and the houses of all your servants and of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.’” Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh.

⁷Then Pharaoh's servants said to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?” ⁸So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. And he said to them, ^(G)“Go, serve the Lord your God. But which ones are to go?” ⁹Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old. We will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, for ^(H)we must hold a feast to the Lord.” ¹⁰But he said to them, “The Lord be with you, if ever I let you and your ^(I)little ones go! Look, you have some evil purpose in mind.^[a] ¹¹No! Go, the men among you, and serve the Lord, for that is what you are asking.” And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence.

¹²Then the Lord said to Moses, ^(J)“Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and ^(K)eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.” ¹³So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. ¹⁴^(L)The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, ^(M)such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again. ¹⁵They covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened, and ^(N)they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Not a green thing remained, neither tree nor plant of the field, through all the land of Egypt. ¹⁶Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, ^(O)“I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. ¹⁷Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and ^(P)plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.” ¹⁸So ^(Q)he went out from Pharaoh and pleaded with the Lord. ¹⁹And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them ^(R)into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt. ²⁰But the Lord ^(S)hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.

The Ninth Plague: Darkness

²¹Then the Lord said to Moses, ^(T)“Stretch out your hand toward heaven, that there may be ^(U)darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness to be felt.” ²²So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was pitch darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. ²³They did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days, but ^(V)all the people of Israel had light where they lived. ²⁴Then Pharaoh called Moses and said, ^(W)“Go, serve the Lord; ^(X)your little ones also may go with you; only let your flocks and your herds remain behind.” ²⁵But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God. ²⁶Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must take of them to serve the Lord our God, and we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.” ²⁷But the Lord ^(Y)hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go. ²⁸Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me; take care never to see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.” ²⁹Moses said, “As you say! ^(Z)I will not see your face again.”

A Final Plague Threatened

11 The Lord said to Moses, “Yet ^(AA)one plague more I will bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterward he will let you go from here. ^(AB)When he lets you go, he will drive you away completely. ²Speak now in the hearing of the people, that ^(AC)they ask, every man of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor, for silver and gold jewelry.” ³^(AD)And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants and in the sight of the people.

⁴So Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ^(AE)‘About midnight I will go out in the midst of Egypt, ⁵and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is ^(AF)behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle. ⁶^(AG)There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has never been, nor ever will be again. ⁷But not a dog shall growl ^(AH)against any of the people of Israel, either man or beast, that you may know that the Lord ^(AI)makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.’ ⁸And ^(AJ)all these your servants shall come down to me and bow down to me, saying, ‘Get out, you and all the people who follow you.’ And after that I will go out.” And he went out from Pharaoh in hot anger. ⁹Then the Lord said to Moses, ^(AK)“Pharaoh will not listen to you, that ^(AL)my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”

¹⁰Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord ^(AM)hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

The Passover

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ²^(AN)“This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. ³Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb ^(AO)according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. ⁴And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. ⁵Your lamb shall be ^(AP)without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, ⁶and you shall keep it until the ^(AQ)fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.^[b]

⁷“Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the ^(AR)two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ⁸They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with ^(AS)unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. ⁹Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but ^(AT)roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. ¹⁰And ^(AU)you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ¹¹In this manner you shall eat it: with ^(AV)your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. ^(AW)It is the Lord's Passover. ¹²For ^(AX)I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on ^(AY)all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: ^(AZ)I am the Lord. ¹³^(BA)The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

Footnotes:

Exodus 10:10 Hebrew before your face
Exodus 12:6 Hebrew between the two evenings

Cross references:

English Standard Version (ESV)

Matthew 20:1-28

Laborers in the Vineyard

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius^[a] a day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, ⁴and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ ⁵So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. ⁶And ^(A)about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ ⁸And ^(B)when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his ^(C)foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ ⁹And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. ¹⁰Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, ¹²saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and ^(D)the scorching heat.’ ¹³But he replied to one of them, ^(E)‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴Take ^(F)what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. ¹⁵^(G)Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or ^(H)do you begrudge my generosity?’^[b] ¹⁶So ^(I)the last will be first, and the first last.”

Jesus Foretells His Death a Third Time

¹⁷^(J)And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, ¹⁸“See, ^(K)we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will ^(L)condemn him to death ¹⁹and ^(M)deliver him over to the Gentiles ^(N)to be mocked and flogged and ^(O)crucified, and he will be raised on ^(P)the third day.”

A Mother's Request

²⁰^(Q)Then ^(R)the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and ^(S)kneeling before him she asked him for something. ²¹And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine ^(T)are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, ^(U)in your kingdom.” ²²Jesus answered, ^(V)“You do not know what you are asking. Are you able ^(W)to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” ²³He said to them, ^(X)“You will drink ^(Y)my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, ^(Z)but it is for those for whom it has been ^(AA)prepared by my Father.” ²⁴And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. ²⁵But Jesus called them to him and said, ^(AB)“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles ^(AC)lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. ²⁶^(AD)It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant,^[c] ²⁷and whoever would be first among you must be your slave,^[d] ²⁸even as the Son of Man came not to be served but ^(AE)to serve, and ^(AF)to give his life as a ransom for ^(AG)many.”

Footnotes:

Matthew 20:2 A denarius was a day's wage for a laborer
Matthew 20:15 Or is your eye bad because I am good?
Matthew 20:26 Greek diakonos
Matthew 20:27 Or bondservant, or servant (for the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface)

Cross references:

English Standard Version (ESV)

Psalm 25:1-15

Teach Me Your Paths

^[a] Of David.

25 To you, O Lord, I ^(A)lift up my soul.
²O my God, in you I ^(B)trust;
^(C)let me not be put to shame;
^(D)let not my enemies exult over me.
³Indeed, ^(E)none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are ^(F)wantonly ^(G)treacherous.

⁴^(H)Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
⁵Lead me in your ^(I)truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

⁶Remember your ^(J)mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
^(K)for they have been from of old.
⁷Remember not ^(L)the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your ^(M)steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

⁸^(N)Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he ^(O)instructs sinners in the way.
⁹He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
¹⁰All the paths of the Lord are ^(P)steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

¹¹For your ^(Q)name's sake, O Lord,
pardon my guilt, for it is ^(R)great.
¹²Who is the man who fears the Lord?
Him ^(S)will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
¹³His soul shall ^(T)abide in well-being,
and his ^(U)offspring ^(V)shall inherit the land.
¹⁴^(W)The friendship^[b] of the Lord is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.
¹⁵My ^(X)eyes are ever toward the Lord,
for he will ^(Y)pluck my feet out of the net.

Footnotes:

Psalm 25:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet
Psalm 25:14 Or The secret counsel

Cross references:

English Standard Version (ESV)

Proverbs 6:6-11

⁶^(A)Go to ^(B)the ant, O ^(C)sluggard;
consider her ways, and ^(D)be wise.
⁷^(E)Without having any chief,
^(F)officer, or ruler,
⁸she prepares her bread ^(G)in summer
and ^(H)gathers her food in harvest.
⁹^(I)How long will you lie there, ^(J)O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
¹⁰^(K)A little sleep, a little slumber,
^(L)a little ^(M)folding of the hands to rest,
¹¹^(N)and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man.

Cross references:

Proverbs 6:6 : [Job 12:7]
Proverbs 6:6 : ch. 30:25
Proverbs 6:6 : ch. 10:26
Proverbs 6:6 : ch. 23:19; 27:11
Proverbs 6:7 : [ch. 30:27]
Proverbs 6:7 : Ex. 5:6, 15
Proverbs 6:8 : [ch. 10:5]
Proverbs 6:8 : [ch. 10:5]
Proverbs 6:9 : [Jonah 1:6]
Proverbs 6:9 : [See ver. 6 above]; ch. 10:26
Proverbs 6:10 : ch. 24:33
Proverbs 6:10 : Eccles. 4:5
Proverbs 6:10 : ch. 24:33
Proverbs 6:11 : ch. 24:34

English Standard Version (ESV)

January 29, 2021

01/29/2021 DAB Transcript

Exodus 8:1-9:35, Matthew 19:13-30, Psalms 24:1-10, Proverbs 6:1-5

Today is the 29^th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy and a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today doing what we do, taking steps forward. We’re not taking steps backward or sideways. We are on a path that’s going to lead us one step after the other straightforward through a year and a through the Scriptures. And we are well on our way. So, it is a joy and an honor to be here. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week, picking up where we left off. The plagues are descending upon Egypt. The man Moses is leading his people although this is not his favorite thing to do. This wasn’t on his radar. This is what God has invited him into and he is being obedient. And Pharaoh the king of Egypt is having a hard time with it. So, let’s pick up the story. Exodus chapters 8 and 9 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, there’s plenty for us to touch on today. In the Old Testament the book of Exodus we are reading of the plagues. And obviously very very famous story. But the plagues are starting to amp up and Pharaoh he keeps changing his mind. And, so, we are watching like systematic dismantling of the power structures that were holding God’s people. Pharaoh could’ve said okay like the first request. It was within his power but his heart…his heart was hardened, and it continues to be hardened because he cannot get his mind around the fact that there may be a God more powerful than himself or the gods of Egypt. And, so, he is convinced that the…the local gods are more powerful than the Hebrew God’s because after all they have enslaved the Hebrew people. They sustain their economy. So, of course they would think that their God is more powerful. But one thing after another after another day by day it’s becoming more and more clear to Pharaoh that this is a problem. But at the same time, he’s got all these officials and his people looking at him like he’s the son of God and a God himself and descended from the gods. So, this is like a problem to surrender to another God. And, so, every time these plagues go away then he reconsiders, hardens his heart and steps back into the ring to get punched again basically. And we will continue with that story as we continue in the book of Exodus.

We get into the book of Matthew today are just watching Jesus. There’s this is beautiful scene where He …He…the little children want to come to Him. The people want Him to bless their children. They’re kinda being held back, they’re just kids and stuff. And Jesus is like, “let em’ come to me. Don’t keep the kids away for me. Don’t keep the children away from me. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” That is…that is something to consider because it’s something that is said more than once in the Bible from the lips of Jesus, that if you don’t have faith like a child, right, then you can’t enter the kingdom of heaven. And, so, we have to begin to think and ponder, “what does that look like?” And those of us who have children we know, like they’re…when they are little children, they look at us like we know everything and can do anything, and they can do anything, and they believe. They believe what we tell them. Then…then we begin to teach them a reason and they begin to go to school and learn reason and out to adapt themselves into their environment around them and we grow skeptical and we lose…we…we lose mystery, and we can’t lose it. Like that’s the thing. It’s not faith when we know it. It’s faith when we don’t but we do if that makes sense. Children. Children are like this. And we should learn that lesson. And then right on the heels of that is a man who is rich…this is like up famous story…would be called the story of the rich young ruler. But this is a wealthy person who actually is a devout servant of God, actually has been trying to obey the Mosaic law and live for God. And, so, he comes to the Rabbi Jesus because at this point in Jesus ministry there’s healings going on, there’s teaching with authority that the people hadn’t experienced before. And, so, he’s coming and saying, “what…what…what else do I need to do? What do I lack?” And this is an instance where we can look at the narrative, look at Jesus, look at His personality, look at how He operates in this world and we can see that He’s going right after the thing that is holding this person back. And in this case, it’s his possessions, his riches. And, so, Jesus tells him, “sell everything, give to the poor and come, follow me.” That’s significant because that is the language Jesus has used to call His disciples, the people that are His inner circle. He’s inviting this person to come follow Him, to come be a part of the story, to divest himself of the things that would hold him back because that’s his question, “what do I lack?” And Jesus answers his question honestly. “What you lack is the ability to let go of your identity as a wealthy person.” And, so, on so many levels, the story becomes about identity. It becomes about what is it that we are surrounding ourselves with or trying to collect and amass to have an identity, right, to make ourselves look good, to be out there in the world and respected? And we’ve talked about…I mean we’re still in January, but we have talked about the masks and about being naked and ashamed and hiding and this is what we’re talking about. What is it that gives you your identity outside of God? That is something that is going to get challenged as we continue our journey because what we will find is that the faith that…that we’re claiming is an all or nothing proposition and nothing that we hold more dear than our relationship with God can survive it because it becomes an idol. It’s the thing that we’re looking to to give us life. We’re gonna watch this over and over and over in the Bible and we’ll…we’ll find that God has no patience for that. He is the author of life and wants to live in relationship with us. And, so, if we’re gonna give our hearts in worship to something else then that’s essential essentially adultery, spiritual adultery. It’s like cheating. It’s turning to a false God in order to get life when the most-high has given us life and we’re giving that life to something else. God hates that. And we’ll watch that. He hates it because it only leads away from Him. And walking in a direction away from Him only leads to destruction.

And, so, to dovetail that really nicely we move into the book of Psalms that we read today and this question, these two questions are asked that are vital questions. “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord” and “who shall stand in His holy place?” In other words, who gets to be in God’s presence? Who actually gets get there? And the question is answered. “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation.

Prayer:

Father, in all of these struggles we see identity kind of at the center of it all. Pharaoh’s thinking he’s a God descended from the gods and that…that there is none higher. And this is his identity and he also needs to kind of keep that image up because that’s one of the things that keeps him in control and in power and it is leading him to destruction. So, Holy Spirit, come help us to realize the things that we have been building up to make ourselves look good, this personality that we keep constructing and modifying and tweaking, the possessions that we try to gather for the sole purpose of…of elevating ourselves above somebody else, these are going nowhere and we can…if we sit and meditate upon this we can find all kinds of ways in which we probably should repent, which in its truest basic form is to change our mind and walk in a different direction. Come Holy Spirit into this we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask because we all need to tweak this out. We all need to surrender. We are all trying to present some kind of false identity out there and it’s going nowhere when we are a city on a hill when we are the light of the world. That’s our identity. Come Holy Spirit and help us to remember and live it we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Commentary:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, its where you find out what’s going on around here. Of course, if you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can access all of these things as well from within the app by pressing the little Drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. So, check that out. Check of the different ways to be connected and stay connected as we take this journey.

Check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop there are a number of resources there for the journey, different sections of the Shop, like the Global Campfire section. We have an entire line of Global Campfire themed items that are just…they’re…they’re there as a reminder that we are a part of a community as we move through the Scriptures this year. And we see that precedent set so many times in Scripture where God is like don’t forget what happened here. Pile up stones so you don’t forget what happened here. Make an alter so you don’t forget what happened here or we even think of Jesus at His last supper, “don’t forget. Do this in remembrance of me.” So, remembering is that inherent in the Bible in a lot of settings. And, so, just…isn’t that the thing? We forget. We react to things because we don’t take a moment to remember and calm ourselves in the moment and invite the Holy Spirit. So, remembering. Then beyond that is in the Lifestyle section of…of the shop, the Daily Audio Bible journals that have been perfected over the years, the Black Wing…all of the Black Wing pencil stuff, this is…this is what I journal with, this is what I write with every day. I have found…and I don’t know if I’ve said it this year, but I have found that I’ve kinda picked up the old school way of sharpening a pencil, actually sharpening a pencil and writing with a pencil in my own hand and that makes a difference. And, so, we searched for the best stuff we can find so that we could write down things so that we won’t forget the days of our lives. So, the Daily Audio Bible journals there, all kinds of things to write with are in the Shop. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg There’s many many other things to take this journey deeper. So, check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. The link is on the homepage. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner. And I thank you with all my heart profoundly for your partnership with the awareness that we wouldn’t be here if we were not in this together and that we have been in this together for quite a while, and I’m awed and grateful. So, link on the homepage, press the Give button in the app, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the Hotline button up at the top. It’s red. You can’t miss it. It looks kinda like a Hotline button, you can press that, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, I’m here in California. Today I listened to woman call in who has insomnia and deals with depression and I believe she said diabetes. And my heart goes out to you for those issues and I am…I am right beside you in prayer regarding them. But something you said today really hit home for me. You talked about having this deep, deep, deep longing and desire to have a partner, but you haven’t seen it come to fruition yet. And you wonder why God would do that to you. And I just got to tell you, you could have…you could have been reading my mind. I literally feel like that all the time. I’ve been dreaming of who I might marry since I was a little girl. I still strongly desire a partner, but it hasn’t come to fruition yet and I’m a single parent to a toddler right now. I awoke love before it was time and I wonder why God would allow such a deep longing to still be in my heart even though, you know, the…the fruition of it doesn’t seem closed like at all. But then I remember that we serve a good God who loves and delights and seeks desires…to satisfy the desires of our hearts with good and lovely things. And that He is the perfect lover of our soul. And I know you have heard that many times in your life, but I pray that today it would still be a comfort and that you would seek closeness to Him tell Him you’re at angers tell Him your worries and your frustrations. He’s here for it all and He loves you. God bless.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible my name is Oyen from London and I am a first time DABber. I am now 25 days in, and I want to say thank you to Kaneo who shared this on Twitter without whom I probably never would have found this. I also want to pray for Isabel from Georgia who has health issues with her brain and seizures. I just wanna pray that the Lord will heal you, that He will make you whole, that He will increase your faith for healing and that your faith will also make you whole. I pray that wherever you are you will feel the arms of God around you. I also want to pray for whoever is feeling alone or lonely in this period, that God will reveal himself to you as a comforter. Thank you, DABber family. I’m so grateful for you. You have been such a blessing.

Good afternoon DAB family this is Marsha I am calling from Minnesota. It’s a beautiful day the sun is shining, and we have a fresh coat of snow on the ground. Today is January 25^th and I am calling as a new person who’s joined your family. I started the first of the year. And when I first started and it got to the prayer request time I thought, “oh I’m just going to skim over this.” And now I found myself I can’t wait to hear what people are calling in with for requests or phrases. And, so, it’s actually moved me greatly. I’ve heard a lot of or a few parents who have called in to say their children have abandoned their family. Unfortunately, I too am dealing with this situation. My first and only grandchild lives 10 minutes from me and I have not seen him or my son for six months. And, of course, I would love to ask for prayers for him to reunite with his parents and his brother and sister. That would be awesome, and I hold tight to that promise that that will happen someday but even more so DAB family, just pray that my son would come back to the Lord. I know he gave his heart to Jesus during high school camp and I believe that he did believe at one point. And, so, I think if he could come back to that it would make such a difference in…in the situation. But I pray for all the other people who have called in with similar situations. It's…it’s so hard to explain. There are times when you think about a death, and I know that I’m grieving the loss of him, but he’s still here so I have hope and I have hope that…that things will soon be back to what they used to be. But I thank you for your prayers. Have a blessed day.

Hello everyone, it’s Tooty Toots His precious scene one from the UK. Today is the 25^th of January and I’ve just listened to the prayers from the 23^rd of January and I’ve just heard from a young lady, I think her name is Isabel and I just wanted to pray for her because I know what it’s like to have seizures at a young age. I’ve got lupus and when I was first diagnosed, I had seizures as well. So, her prayer really connected with me. Just, so yeah, I just want to pray for her and just lift her up in prayers. So heavenly Father we bless You we thank You for Your daughter. We thank You for her life. We thank You for the fact that You have breathed life into her. And we just thank You for Your awesomeness Lord. We just pray for Your daughter. We ask that Lord You will wrap her in Your warm embrace Lord almighty, that she will feel the fullness of Your joy. And we just pray that God almighty in her life Your name would be glorified. And we speak to anything in her body that doesn’t work well, and we just ask in the name of Jesus that You perfect everything that concerns her. From the crown of her head to the soles of her feet I just pray that Your anointing will be upon her. And I just pray that God in everything that she remembers that she is fearfully and wonderfully made by You, that she is made in Your image and that You delight in her. So, I just pray that God in her life that she will come to know You in such an intimate way Lord and that God You will give her complete and total healing because You are the God who is Jehovah Rapha. Heavenly Father we bless You we thank You we just give You all the glory. Thank You so much Lord Jesus. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. I may not see you I hear you and I love you all so much.

Good day brothers and sisters I would just like to echo the prayers spoken by the mouth of Brian on the 23^rd of January, it’s Saturday. And I just pray the Holy Spirit would intercede. These thoughts in our head may they not just be thoughts in our head, but may they be footsteps, may they be steps in which we walk in faith. Holy Spirit I pray that you would come upon each and every one of your children. God show us the way you want us to live. Let us take away the fig leaf’s, take away the shame and let us be naked in your glory God not being ashamed because we are fearfully and wonderfully made in you God. Hallelujah. Come on. God I just lift up each and every one of Your children. May we become more like You. May we present to the world the people You have made in Jesus’ name I pray. God bless.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family I am so grateful to be part of this ministry and found it and be on this journey with you all. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a faith family due to various reasons. But mostly just being very hurt in the Christian Community. And it’s been a very hard year for all of us. I think 2020 it was so hard. And…but I am __ getting engaged and I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like I should be happier, but I am, but I just feel like nothing good happens to me. And, so, this can’t be right either. So, I just really need the help. I don’t know what to do and I need to feel God’s peace in this waiting. So, if you could help me with that, I would appreciate it. I…I love you all and I am praying for you in my heart. Thank you. Bye.