Along The Way (December 22nd - 28th)
Scroll to the day you would like to read and click the plus icon to read the day’s scripture.
-
Daniel 11
“As for me, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to support and strengthen him.
“Now I will announce the truth to you. Three more kings shall arise in Persia. The fourth shall be far richer than all of them, and when he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece. Then a warrior king shall arise who shall rule with great dominion and take action as he pleases. And while still rising in power, his kingdom shall be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven but not to his posterity nor according to the dominion with which he ruled, for his kingdom shall be uprooted and go to others besides these.
“Then the king of the south shall grow strong, but one of his officers shall grow stronger than he and shall rule a realm greater than his own realm. After some years they shall make an alliance, and the daughter of the king of the south shall come to the king of the north to ratify the agreement. But she shall not retain her power, and his offspring shall not endure. She shall be given up, she and her attendants and her child and the one who supported her.
“In those times a branch from her roots shall rise up in his place. He shall come against the army and enter the fortress of the king of the north, and he shall take action against them and prevail. Even their gods, with their idols and with their precious vessels of silver and gold, he shall carry off to Egypt as spoils of war. For some years he shall refrain from attacking the king of the north; then the latter shall invade the realm of the king of the south but will return to his own land.
“His sons shall wage war and assemble a multitude of great forces that shall advance like a flood and pass through and again shall carry the war as far as his fortress. Moved with rage, the king of the south shall go out and do battle against the king of the north, who shall muster a great multitude, but the multitude shall be given over to his hand. When the multitude has been carried off, his heart shall be exalted, and he shall overthrow tens of thousands, but he shall not prevail. For the king of the north shall again raise a multitude larger than the former, and after some years he shall advance with a great army and abundant supplies.
“In those times many shall rise against the king of the south. The lawless among your own people shall lift themselves up in order to fulfill the vision, but they shall fail. Then the king of the north shall come and throw up siegeworks and take a well-fortified city. And the forces of the south shall not stand, not even his picked troops, for there shall be no strength to resist. But he who comes against him shall take the actions he pleases, and no one shall withstand him. He shall take a position in the beautiful land, and all of it shall be in his power. He shall set his face to come with the strength of his whole kingdom. He shall make peace with him and shall give him a woman in marriage, in order to destroy the kingdom, but it shall not succeed or be to his advantage. Afterward he shall turn to the coastlands and shall capture many, but a commander shall put an end to his insolence; indeed, he shall turn his insolence back upon him. Then he shall turn back toward the fortresses of his own land, but he shall stumble and fall and shall not be found.
“Then shall arise in his place one who shall send an official for the glory of the kingdom, but within a few days he shall be broken, though not in anger or in battle. In his place shall arise a contemptible person on whom royal majesty had not been conferred; he shall come in suddenly and seize the kingdom through intrigue. Armies shall be utterly swept away and broken before him, and the prince of the covenant as well. And after an alliance is made with him, he shall act deceitfully and become strong with a small party. Suddenly he shall come into the richest parts of the province and do what none of his predecessors had ever done, lavishing plunder, spoil, and wealth on them. He shall devise plans against strongholds but only for a time. He shall stir up his power and determination against the king of the south with a great army, and the king of the south shall wage war with a much greater and stronger army. But he shall not succeed, for plots shall be devised against him. Those who eat of the royal rations shall break him, his army shall be swept away, and many shall fall slain. The two kings, their minds bent on evil, shall sit at one table and exchange lies. But it shall not succeed, for there remains an end at the time appointed. He shall return to his land with great wealth, but his heart shall be set against the holy covenant. He shall work his will and return to his own land.
“At the time appointed he shall return and come into the south, but this time it shall not be as it was before. For ships of Kittim shall come against him, and he shall lose heart and withdraw. He shall be enraged and take action against the holy covenant. He shall turn back and come to an understanding with those who forsake the holy covenant. Forces sent by him shall occupy and profane the temple and fortress. They shall abolish the regular burnt offering and set up the desolating sacrilege. He will flatter with smooth words those who violate the covenant, but the people who are loyal to their God shall stand firm and take action. The wise among the people shall give understanding to many; for some days, however, they shall fall by sword and flame and suffer captivity and plunder. When they fall, they shall receive a little help, and many shall join them insincerely. Some of the wise shall fall, so that they may be refined, purified, and cleansed, until the time of the end, for there is still an interval until the time appointed.
“The king shall act as he pleases. He shall exalt himself and consider himself greater than any god and shall speak horrendous things against the God of gods. He shall prosper until the period of wrath is completed, for what is determined shall be done. He shall pay no respect to the gods of his ancestors or to the one beloved by women; he shall pay no respect to any other god, for he shall consider himself greater than all. He shall honor the god of fortresses instead of these; a god whom his ancestors did not know he shall honor with gold and silver, with precious stones and costly gifts. He shall deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. Those who acknowledge him he shall make more wealthy and shall appoint them as rulers over many and shall distribute the land for a price.
The Time of the End
“At the time of the end the king of the south shall attack him. But the king of the north shall rush upon him like a whirlwind, with chariots and horsemen and with many ships. He shall advance against countries and pass through like a flood. He shall come into the beautiful land, and tens of thousands shall fall victim, but Edom and Moab and the main part of the Ammonites shall escape from his power. He shall stretch out his hand against the countries, and the land of Egypt shall not escape. He shall gain control of the treasures of gold and of silver and all the riches of Egypt, and the Libyans and the Cushites shall follow in his train. But reports from the east and the north shall alarm him, and he shall go out with great fury to bring ruin and complete destruction to many. He shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he shall come to his end, with no one to help him.
-
Daniel 12
The Resurrection of the Dead
“At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. But you, Daniel, keep the words secret and the book sealed until the time of the end. Many shall be running back and forth, and evil shall increase.”
Then I, Daniel, looked, and two others appeared, one standing on this bank of the stream and one on the other. One of them said to the man clothed in linen, who was upstream, “How long shall it be until the end of these wonders?” The man clothed in linen, who was upstream, raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven. And I heard him swear by the one who lives forever that it would be for a time, two times, and half a time and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be accomplished. I heard but could not understand, so I said, “My lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?” He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are to remain secret and sealed until the time of the end. Many shall be purified, cleansed, and refined, but the wicked shall continue to act wickedly. None of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. From the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the desolating sacrilege is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred ninety days. Happy are those who persevere and attain the thousand three hundred thirty-five days. But you, go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days.”
-
Hosea 1
The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri, in the days of Kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel.
The Family of Hosea
When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and have children of prostitution, for the land commits great prostitution by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
And the Lord said to him, “Name him Jezreel, for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel.”
She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, “Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God; I will not save them by bow or by sword or by war or by horses or by horsemen.”
When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said, “Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.”
The Restoration of Israel
Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can be neither measured nor numbered, and in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children of the living God.” The people of Judah and the people of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head, and they shall rise up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.
-
Hosea 2 & 3
Say to your brothers, “Ammi,” and to your sisters, “Ruhamah.”
Israel’s Infidelity, Punishment, and Redemption
Plead with your mother, plead —
for she is not my wife,
and I am not her husband —
that she put away her prostitution from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts,
or I will strip her naked
and expose her as in the day she was born
and make her like a wilderness
and turn her into a parched land
and kill her with thirst.
Upon her children also I will have no pity,
because they are children of prostitution.
For their mother has prostituted herself;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will go after my lovers;
they give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”
Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her
so that she cannot find her paths.
She shall pursue her lovers
but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
but shall not find them.
Then she shall say, “I will go
and return to my first husband,
for it was better with me then than now.”
She did not know
that it was I who gave her
the grain, the wine, and the oil
and who lavished upon her silver
and gold that they used for Baal.
Therefore I will take back
my grain in its time
and my wine in its season,
and I will take away my wool and my flax,
which were to cover her nakedness.
Now I will uncover her shame
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
I will put an end to all her mirth,
her festivals, her new moons, her Sabbaths,
and all her appointed festivals.
I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees,
of which she said,
“These are my pay,
which my lovers have given me.”
I will make them a forest,
and the wild animals shall devour them.
I will punish her for the festival days of the Baals,
to whom she offered incense
and decked herself with her rings and jewelry
and went after her lovers
and forgot me, says the Lord.
Therefore, I will now allure her
and bring her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
From there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
On that day, says the Lord, you will call me “my husband,” and no longer will you call me “my Baal.” For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground, and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.
On that day I will answer, says the Lord,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel,
and I will sow him for myself in the land.
And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah,
and I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people,”
and he shall say, “You are my God.”
Further Assurances of God’s Redeeming Love
The Lord said to me again, “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine. And I said to her, “You must remain as mine for many days; you shall not prostitute yourself; you shall not have intercourse with a man, nor I with you.” For the Israelites shall remain many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the Israelites shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king; they shall come in awe to the Lord and to his goodness in the latter days.
-
Hosea 4 & 5
God Accuses Israel
Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel,
for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty
and no knowledge of God in the land.
Swearing, lying, and murder,
and stealing and adultery break out;
bloodshed follows bloodshed.
Therefore the land mourns,
and all who live in it languish;
together with the wild animals
and the birds of the air,
even the fish of the sea are perishing.
Yet let no one contend,
and let none accuse,
for with you is my contention, O priest.
You shall stumble by day;
the prophet also shall stumble with you by night,
and I will destroy your mother.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge!
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me;
and since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
The more they increased,
the more they sinned against me;
they changed their glory into shame.
They feed on the sin of my people;
they are greedy for their iniquity.
And it shall be like people, like priest;
I will punish them for their ways
and repay them for their deeds.
They shall eat but not be satisfied;
they shall prostitute themselves but not multiply,
because they have forsaken the Lord
to devote themselves to prostitution.
The Idolatry of Israel
Wine and new wine
take away the understanding.
My people consult a piece of wood,
and their divining rod gives them oracles.
For a spirit of prostitution has led them astray,
and they have prostituted themselves, forsaking their God.
They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains
and make offerings upon the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth
because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters prostitute themselves,
and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
I will not punish your daughters when they prostitute themselves
nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery,
for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes
and sacrifice with female attendants;
thus a people without understanding comes to ruin.
Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel,
do not let Judah become guilty.
Do not enter into Gilgal
or go up to Beth-aven,
and do not swear, “As the Lord lives.”
Like a stubborn heifer,
Israel is stubborn;
can the Lord now feed them
like a lamb in a broad pasture?
Ephraim is joined to idols —
let him alone.
When their drinking is ended, they indulge in sexual orgies;
they love lewdness more than their glory.
A wind has wrapped them in its wings,
and they shall be ashamed because of their altars.
Impending Judgment on Israel and Judah
Hear this, O priests!
Give heed, O house of Israel!
Listen, O house of the king!
For the judgment pertains to you,
for you have been a snare at Mizpah
and a net spread upon Tabor
and a pit dug deep in Shittim,
but I will punish all of them.
I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from me,
for now, O Ephraim, you have prostituted yourself;
Israel is defiled.
Their deeds do not permit them
to return to their God.
For the spirit of prostitution is within them,
and they do not know the Lord.
Israel’s pride testifies against him;
Ephraim stumbles in his guilt;
Judah also stumbles with them.
With their flocks and herds they shall go
to seek the Lord,
but they will not find him;
he has withdrawn from them.
They have dealt faithlessly with the Lord,
for they have borne illegitimate children.
Now the new moon shall devour them along with their fields.
Blow the horn in Gibeah,
the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;
look behind you, Benjamin!
Ephraim shall become a desolation
in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
I declare what is sure.
The princes of Judah have become
like those who remove the landmark;
on them I will pour out
my wrath like water.
Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
because he was determined to go after vanity.
Therefore I am like maggots to Ephraim
and like rottenness to the house of Judah.
When Ephraim saw his sickness
and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria
and sent to the great king.
But he is not able to cure you
or heal your wound.
For I will be like a lion to Ephraim
and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and go away;
I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
I will return again to my place
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
In their distress they will beg my favor:
-
Hosea 6 & 7
A Call to Repentance
“Come, let us return to the Lord,
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth.”
Impenitence of Israel and Judah
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets;
I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
and my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
But at Adam they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me.
Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with blood.
As robbers lie in wait for someone,
so the priests are banded together;
they murder on the road to Shechem;
they commit a monstrous crime.
In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
Ephraim’s prostitution is there; Israel is defiled.
For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.
When I would restore the fortunes of my people,
when I would heal Israel,
the corruption of Ephraim is revealed,
and the wicked deeds of Samaria,
for they deal falsely;
the thief breaks in,
and the bandits raid outside.
But they do not consider
that I remember all their wickedness.
Now their deeds surround them;
they are before my face.
By their wickedness they make the king glad,
and the officials by their treachery.
They are all adulterers;
they are like a heated oven
whose baker does not need to stir the fire
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.
On the day of our king the officials
became sick with the heat of wine;
he stretched out his hand with mockers.
For they are kindled like an oven; their heart burns within them;
all night their anger smolders;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
All of them are hot as an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
none of them calls upon me.
Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
Foreigners devour his strength,
but he does not know it;
gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,
but he does not know it.
Israel’s pride testifies against him;
yet they do not return to the Lord their God
or seek him, for all this.
Futile Reliance on the Nations
Ephraim has become like a dove,
silly and without sense;
they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria.
As they go, I will cast my net over them;
I will bring them down like birds of the air;
I will discipline them according to the report made to their assembly.
Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
but they speak lies against me.
They do not cry to me from the heart,
but they wail upon their beds;
they gash themselves for grain and wine;
they rebel against me.
It was I who trained and strengthened their arms,
yet they plot evil against me.
They turn to that which does not profit;
they have become like a defective bow;
their officials shall fall by the sword
because of the rage of their tongue.
So much for their babbling in the land of Egypt.
-
Hosea 8 & 9
Israel’s Apostasy
Set the trumpet to your lips!
One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord,
because they have broken my covenant
and transgressed my law.
They cry to me,
“My God, we know you!”
Israel has spurned the good;
the enemy shall pursue him.
They made kings but not through me;
they set up princes but without my knowledge.
With their silver and gold they made idols
for their own destruction.
Your calf is rejected, O Samaria.
My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?
For it is from Israel,
an artisan made it;
it is not God.
The calf of Samaria
shall be broken to pieces.
For they sow the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads;
it shall yield no meal;
if it were to yield,
foreigners would devour it.
Israel is swallowed up;
now they are among the nations
as a useless vessel.
For they have gone up to Assyria,
a wild ass wandering alone;
Ephraim has bargained for lovers.
Though they bargain with the nations,
I will now gather them up.
They shall soon writhe
under the burden of kings and princes.
When Ephraim multiplied altars to expiate sin,
they became to him altars for sinning.
Though I write for him the multitude of my instructions,
they are regarded as a strange thing.
Though they offer choice sacrifices,
though they eat flesh,
the Lord does not accept them.
Now he will remember their iniquity
and punish their sins;
they shall return to Egypt.
Israel has forgotten his Maker
and built palaces,
and Judah has multiplied fortified cities,
but I will send a fire upon his cities,
and it shall devour his strongholds.
Punishment for Israel’s Sin
Do not rejoice, O Israel!
Do not exult as other nations do,
for you have prostituted yourself, departing from your God.
You have loved a prostitute’s pay
on all threshing floors.
Threshing floor and wine vat shall not feed them,
and the new wine shall fail them.
They shall not remain in the land of the Lord,
but Ephraim shall return to Egypt,
and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.
They shall not pour drink offerings of wine to the Lord,
and their sacrifices shall not please him.
Such sacrifices shall be like mourners’ bread;
all who eat of it shall be defiled,
for their bread shall be for their hunger only;
it shall not come to the house of the Lord.
What will you do on the day of appointed festival
and on the day of the festival of the Lord?
For even if they escape destruction,
Egypt shall gather them;
Memphis shall bury them.
Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver;
thorns shall be in their tents.
The days of punishment have come;
the days of recompense have come.
Israel will cry out,
“The prophet is a fool;
the man of the spirit is mad!”
Because of your great iniquity,
your hostility is great.
The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim,
yet a hunter’s snare is on all his ways
and hostility in the house of his God.
They have deeply corrupted themselves
as in the days of Gibeah;
he will remember their iniquity;
he will punish their sins.
Like grapes in the wilderness,
I found Israel.
Like the first fruit on the fig tree,
in its first season,
I saw your ancestors.
But they came to Baal-peor
and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame
and became detestable like the thing they loved.
Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird —
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
Even if they bring up children,
I will bereave them until no one is left.
Woe to them indeed
when I depart from them!
Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow,
but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.
Give them, O Lord —
what will you give?
Give them a miscarrying womb
and dry breasts.
Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;
there I came to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their officials are rebels.
Ephraim is stricken,
their root is dried up,
they shall bear no fruit.
Even though they give birth,
I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.
Because they have not listened to him,
my God will reject them;
they shall become wanderers among the nations.