The Daily Audio Bible Reading for Thursday March 30, 2017 (NIV)

Deuteronomy 13-15

False prophets and false gods

13 [a] Now if a prophet or a dream interpreter appears among you and performs a sign or wonder for you, and the sign or wonder that was spoken actually occurs; if he says: “Come on! We should follow other gods”—ones you haven’t experienced—“and we should worship them,” you must not listen to that prophet’s or dream interpreter’s words, because the Lord your God is testing you to see if you love the Lord your God with all your mind and all your being. You must follow the Lord your God alone! Revere him! Follow his commandments! Obey his voice! Worship him! Cling to him—no other! That prophet or dream interpreter must be executed because he encouraged you to turn away from the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, who redeemed you from the house of slavery; they tried to lead you away from the path the Lord your God commanded you to take. Remove[b] such evil from your community!

Similarly, if one of your relatives—even one of your own siblings—or your own son or daughter or your dear spouse or best friend entices you secretly, if someone like that says: “Come on! We should follow and worship other gods”—ones that neither you nor your ancestors have experienced, gods from all the neighboring peoples, whether nearby or far away, from one end of the earth to the other— don’t give in to them! Don’t obey them! Don’t have any mercy on them! Don’t have compassion on them and don’t protect them! Instead, you must execute them. Your own hand must be against them from the beginning of the execution; the hand of all the people will be involved at the end. 10 Stone them until they are dead because they desired to lead you away from the Lord your God, the one who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 All Israel will hear about this and be afraid. They won’t do that sort of evil thing among you again.

12 Or if you hear about one of your towns the Lord your God is giving you to inhabit, that 13 certain wicked people have gone out from your community and they’ve led the citizens of their town astray by saying: “Come on! We should follow and worship other gods”—ones you haven’t experienced before; 14 at that point you must look into this situation very carefully to see if it’s true. And if it’s definitely true that this detestable thing was done in your community, 15 you must completely strike down the inhabitants of that city with the sword. Place it and all that is in it under the ban.[c] Put its animals to the sword. 16 Gather all the plunder into the middle of the town’s square. Then burn the city and all of its plunder as an entirely burned offering to the Lord your God. It must remain a heap of rubble forever. It must not be rebuilt. 17 Don’t hold on to any of the banned items—this will ensure that the Lord turns from his great anger and is compassionate to you, showing you mercy and multiplying you just like he swore to your ancestors. 18 You must definitely obey the Lord your God’s voice, keeping all his commandments that I am giving you right now, by doing what is right in the Lord your God’s eyes!

Complete devotion to the Lord

14 You are the Lord’s children. Don’t cut yourselves and don’t shave your foreheads for the dead, because you are a people holy to the Lord your God. You are the ones whom the Lord selected to be his own, to be a treasured people out of all other people on earth.

Dietary laws

Don’t eat any detestable thing. Here’s a list of animals you are allowed to eat: ox, sheep, goat, deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep. You are also allowed to eat any animal with a divided hoof—the hoof being divided into two parts—and that rechews food among the various kinds of animals. However, here’s a list of animals that either rechew food or have hooves divided in two parts that you are not allowed to eat:

the camel, the hare, and the rock badger—because these rechew food but don’t have divided hoofs, they are off-limits for you;

and the pig—because it has a divided hoof but doesn’t rechew food, it’s off-limits for you.

You may not eat these animals’ meat, and you must not touch their carcasses.

Here’s a list of the water animals you are allowed to eat: you can eat anything that has fins and scales. 10 But you aren’t allowed to eat anything that lacks scales or fins. These are off-limits for you.

11 You are allowed to eat any clean bird. 12 Here’s a list of those you are not allowed to eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, 13 the red kite, the black kite, and any kind of bird of prey, 14 any kind of raven, 15 the ostrich, the nighthawk, the seagull, any kind of hawk, 16 the small owl and the large owl, the water hen, 17 the desert owl, the carrion vulture, the cormorant, 18 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat.[d]

19 Also, all winged insects are off-limits for you. They are not to be eaten. 20 Any clean winged creature can be eaten, however.

21 You must not eat any decayed animal flesh because you are a people holy to the Lord your God. You can give decayed animal flesh to the immigrants who live in your cities, and they can eat it; or you can sell it to foreigners.

Don’t cook a lamb in its own mother’s milk.

Tenth part

22 You must reserve a tenth part of whatever your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tenth part of your grain, wine, oil, oldest offspring of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God in the location he selects for his name to reside so that you learn to fear the Lord your God at all times. 24 But if the trip is too long, because the location the Lord your God has selected to put his name is far away from where you live so that you can’t transport the tenth part—because the Lord your God will certainly bless you— 25 then you can convert it to money. Take the money with you and go to the location the Lord your God selects. 26 Then you can use the money for anything you want: cattle, sheep, wine, beer, or whatever else you might like. Then you should feast there and celebrate in the presence of the Lord your God, along with your entire household. 27 Only make sure not to neglect the Levites who are living in your cities because they don’t have a designated inheritance like you do.

28 Every third year you must bring the tenth part of your produce from that year and leave it at your city gates. 29 Then the Levites, who have no designated inheritance like you do, along with the immigrants, orphans, and widows who live in your cities, will come and feast until they are full. Do this so that the Lord your God might bless you in everything you do.

Year of canceled debts

15 Every seventh year you must cancel all debts. This is how the cancellation is to be handled: Creditors will forgive the loans of their fellow Israelites. They won’t demand repayment from their neighbors or their relatives because the Lord’s year of debt cancellation has been announced. You are allowed to demand payment from foreigners, but whatever is owed you from your fellow Israelites you must forgive. Of course there won’t be any poor persons among you because the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, but only if you carefully obey the Lord your God’s voice, by carefully doing every bit of this commandment that I’m giving you right now. Once the Lord your God has blessed you, exactly as he said he would, you will end up lending to many different peoples but won’t need to borrow a thing. You will dominate many different peoples, but they won’t dominate you.

Now if there are some poor persons among you, say one of your fellow Israelites in one of your cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, don’t be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward your poor fellow Israelites. To the contrary! Open your hand wide to them. You must generously lend them whatever they need. But watch yourself! Make sure no wicked thought crosses your mind, such as, The seventh year is coming—the year of debt cancellation—so that you resent your poor fellow Israelites and don’t give them anything. If you do that, they will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. 10 No, give generously to needy persons. Don’t resent giving to them because it is this very thing that will lead to the Lord your God’s blessing you in all you do and work at. 11 Poor persons will never disappear from the earth. That’s why I’m giving you this command: you must open your hand generously to your fellow Israelites, to the needy among you, and to the poor who live with you in your land.

12 If any of your fellow Hebrews, male or female, sell themselves into your service, they can work for you for six years, but in the seventh year you must set them free from your service. 13 Furthermore, when you set them free from your service, you must not let them go empty-handed. 14 Instead, provide for them fully from your flock, food, and wine. You must give to them from that with which the Lord your God has blessed you. 15 Remember how each of you were slaves in Egypt and how the Lord your God saved you. That’s why I am commanding you to do this right now. (16 Now if your male servant says to you: “I don’t want to leave your service” because he loves you and your family and because life is good for him in your service, 17 then you may take a needle and pierce his ear with it into the doorframe. From that point on, he will be your permanent servant. Do the same thing for female servants.) 18 Don’t consider it a hardship to set these servants free from your service, because they worked for you for six years—at a value double that of a paid worker. The Lord your God will bless you in everything that you do.

19 You must devote every oldest male animal from your herds or flocks to the Lord your God. Don’t plow with your oldest male ox and don’t shear your oldest male sheep. 20 Year after year, you and your family are allowed to eat these animals in the presence of the Lord your God, in the location the Lord selects. 21 But if there is any defect in it, lameness, blindness, any flaw whatsoever, you must not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. 22 You are allowed to eat those in your own cities, whether you are polluted or purified, just as you would eat gazelle or deer. 23 Even so, don’t consume any blood. Pour it out on the ground, like water.

Footnotes:

  1. Deuteronomy 13:1 13:2 in Heb
  2. Deuteronomy 13:5 Or burn
  3. Deuteronomy 13:15 See note at 2:34.
  4. Deuteronomy 14:18 The species of many of the birds in 14:12-18 is uncertain.
Common English Bible (CEB)

Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible

Luke 8:40-9:6

Jesus heals two women

40 When Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they had been waiting for him. 41 A man named Jairus, who was a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet. He pleaded with Jesus to come to his house 42 because his only daughter, a twelve-year-old, was dying.

As Jesus moved forward, he faced smothering crowds. 43 A woman was there who had been bleeding for twelve years. She had spent her entire livelihood on doctors, but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the hem of his clothes, and at once her bleeding stopped.

45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When everyone denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds are surrounding you and pressing in on you!”

46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me. I know that power has gone out from me.”

47 When the woman saw that she couldn’t escape notice, she came trembling and fell before Jesus. In front of everyone, she explained why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.

48 “Daughter, your faith has healed you,” Jesus said. “Go in peace.”

49 While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the synagogue leader’s house, saying to Jairus, “Your daughter has died. Don’t bother the teacher any longer.”

50 When Jesus heard this, he responded, “Don’t be afraid; just keep trusting, and she will be healed.”

51 When he came to the house, he didn’t allow anyone to enter with him except Peter, John, and James, and the child’s father and mother. 52 They were all crying and mourning for her, but Jesus said, “Don’t cry. She isn’t dead. She’s only sleeping.”

53 They laughed at him because they knew she was dead.

54 Taking her hand, Jesus called out, “Child, get up.” 55 Her life returned and she got up at once. He directed them to give her something to eat. 56 Her parents were beside themselves with joy, but he ordered them to tell no one what had happened.

The Twelve sent out

Jesus called the Twelve together and he gave them power and authority over all demons and to heal sicknesses. He sent them out to proclaim God’s kingdom and to heal the sick. He told them, “Take nothing for the journey—no walking stick, no bag, no bread, no money, not even an extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, remain there until you leave that place. Wherever they don’t welcome you, as you leave that city, shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.” They departed and went through the villages proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.

Common English Bible (CEB)

Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible

Psalm 71

Psalm 71

71 I’ve taken refuge in you, Lord.
Don’t let me ever be put to shame!
Deliver me and rescue me by your righteousness!
Bend your ear toward me and save me!
Be my rock of refuge
where I can always escape.
You commanded that my life be saved
because you are my rock and my fortress.

My God, rescue me from the power of the wicked;
rescue me from the grip of the wrongdoer and the oppressor
because you are my hope, Lord.
You, Lord, are the one I’ve trusted since childhood.
I’ve depended on you from birth—
you cut the cord when I came from my mother’s womb.
My praise is always about you.
I’ve become an example to many people
because you are my strong refuge.
My mouth is filled with your praise,
glorifying you all day long.
Don’t cast me off in old age.
Don’t abandon me when my strength is used up!

10 Yes, my enemies have been talking about me;
those who stalk me plot together:
11 “God has abandoned him!
Pursue him!
Grab him because no one will deliver him!”
12 Don’t be far from me, God!
My God, hurry to help me!
13 Let my accusers be put to shame,
completely finished off!
Let those who seek my downfall
be dressed in insults and disgrace!

14 But me? I will hope. Always.
I will add to all your praise.
15 My mouth will repeat your righteous acts
and your saving deeds all day long.
I don’t even know how many of those there are!
16 I will dwell on your mighty acts, my Lord.
Lord, I will help others remember nothing but your righteous deeds.
17 You’ve taught me since my youth, God,
and I’m still proclaiming your wondrous deeds!
18 So, even in my old age with gray hair,
don’t abandon me, God!
Not until I tell generations about your mighty arm,
tell all who are yet to come about your strength,
19 and about your ultimate righteousness, God,
because you’ve done awesome things!
Who can compare to you, God?
20 You, who have shown me many troubles and calamities,
will revive me once more.[a]
From the depths of the earth,
you will raise me up one more time.
21 Please increase my honor
and comfort me all around.
22 Then I’ll give you thanks with a harp—
I will thank you for your faithfulness, my God.
I will make music for you with the lyre, holy one of Israel.
23 My lips will rejoice aloud when I make music for you;
my whole being,[b] which you saved, will do the same.
24 My tongue, also, will tell of your righteousness all day long,
because those who seek my downfall
have been put to shame and disgraced.

Footnotes:

  1. Psalm 71:20 Qere; Kethib who have shown us … will revive us
  2. Psalm 71:23 Or soul
Common English Bible (CEB)

Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible

Proverbs 12:5-7

The plans of the righteous are just,
but the guidance of the wicked is deceptive.
The words of the wicked are a deathtrap,
but the speech of those who do right rescues them.
The wicked are destroyed and are no more,
but the family of the righteous will endure.

Common English Bible (CEB)

Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible