THEINC-HIM Daily Bible Meditation - January 14 - Full Text!

Genesis 1:1 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

THEINC-HIM Daily Bible Meditation

JANUARY 14

PSALMS: 14, 44, 74, 104, 134

PROVERBS: 14

OLD TESTAMENT: DEUTERONOMY 28:1 - 68

NEW TESTAMENT: LUKE 11:14 - 36

PSALMS: 14

For the director of music. Of David.

¹ The fool ^A says in his heart,

"There is no God."

They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;

there is no one who does good.

² The LORD looks down from heaven

on the sons of men

to see if there are any who understand,

any who seek God.

³ All have turned aside,

they have together become corrupt;

there is no one who does good,

not even one.

⁴ Will evildoers never learn--

those who devour my people as men eat bread

and who do not call on the LORD?

⁵ There they are, overwhelmed with dread,

for God is present in the company of the righteous.

⁶ You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,

but the LORD is their refuge.

⁷ Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!

When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,

let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad! ¹

PSALMS: 44

For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A maskil. ^A

¹ We have heard with our ears, O God;

our fathers have told us

what you did in their days,

in days long ago.

² With your hand you drove out the nations

and planted our fathers;

you crushed the peoples

and made our fathers flourish.

³ It was not by their sword that they won the land,

nor did their arm bring them victory;

it was your right hand, your arm,

and the light of your face, for you loved them.

⁴ You are my King and my God,

who decrees ^B victories for Jacob.

⁵ Through you we push back our enemies;

through your name we trample our foes.

⁶ I do not trust in my bow,

my sword does not bring me victory;

⁷ but you give us victory over our enemies,

you put our adversaries to shame.

⁸ In God we make our boast all day long,

and we will praise your name forever.

Selah

⁹ But now you have rejected and humbled us;

you no longer go out with our armies.

¹⁰ You made us retreat before the enemy,

and our adversaries have plundered us. ²

¹¹ You gave us up to be devoured like sheep

and have scattered us among the nations.

¹² You sold your people for a pittance,

gaining nothing from their sale.

¹³ You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,

the scorn and derision of those around us.

¹⁴ You have made us a byword among the nations;

the peoples shake their heads at us.

¹⁵ My disgrace is before me all day long,

and my face is covered with shame

¹⁶ at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,

because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.

¹⁷ All this happened to us,

though we had not forgotten you

or been false to your covenant.

¹⁸ Our hearts had not turned back;

our feet had not strayed from your path.

¹⁹ But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals

and covered us over with deep darkness.

²⁰ If we had forgotten the name of our God

or spread out our hands to a foreign god,

²¹ would not God have discovered it,

since he knows the secrets of the heart?

²² Yet for your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

²³ Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?

Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. ³

²⁴ Why do you hide your face

and forget our misery and oppression?

²⁵ We are brought down to the dust;

our bodies cling to the ground.

²⁶ Rise up and help us;

redeem us because of your unfailing love. ⁴

PSALMS: 74

A maskil ^A of Asaph.

¹ Why have you rejected us forever, O God?

Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?

² Remember the people you purchased of old,

the tribe of your inheritance, whom you redeemed--

Mount Zion, where you dwelt.

³ Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins,

all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary.

⁴ Your foes roared in the place where you met with us;

they set up their standards as signs.

⁵ They behaved like men wielding axes

to cut through a thicket of trees.

⁶ They smashed all the carved paneling

with their axes and hatchets.

⁷ They burned your sanctuary to the ground;

they defiled the dwelling place of your Name.

⁸ They said in their hearts, "We will crush them completely!"

They burned every place where God was worshiped in the land.

⁹ We are given no miraculous signs;

no prophets are left,

and none of us knows how long this will be.

¹⁰ How long will the enemy mock you, O God?

Will the foe revile your name forever?

¹¹ Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?

Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!

¹² But you, O God, are my king from of old;

you bring salvation upon the earth. ⁵

¹³ It was you who split open the sea by your power;

you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.

¹⁴ It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan

and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert.

¹⁵ It was you who opened up springs and streams;

you dried up the ever flowing rivers.

¹⁶ The day is yours, and yours also the night;

you established the sun and moon.

¹⁷ It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth;

you made both summer and winter.

¹⁸ Remember how the enemy has mocked you, O LORD,

how foolish people have reviled your name.

¹⁹ Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;

do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.

²⁰ Have regard for your covenant,

because haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.

²¹ Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace;

may the poor and needy praise your name.

²² Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;

remember how fools mock you all day long.

²³ Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries,

the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually. ⁶

PSALMS: 104

¹ Praise the LORD, O my soul.

O LORD my God, you are very great;

you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

² He wraps himself in light as with a garment;

he stretches out the heavens like a tent

³ and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.

He makes the clouds his chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind.

⁴ He makes winds his messengers, ^A

flames of fire his servants.

⁵ He set the earth on its foundations;

it can never be moved.

⁶ You covered it with the deep as with a garment;

the waters stood above the mountains.

⁷ But at your rebuke the waters fled,

at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;

⁸ they flowed over the mountains,

they went down into the valleys,

to the place you assigned for them.

⁹ You set a boundary they cannot cross;

never again will they cover the earth.

¹⁰ He makes springs pour water into the ravines;

it flows between the mountains.

¹¹ They give water to all the beasts of the field;

the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

¹² The birds of the air nest by the waters;

they sing among the branches.

¹³ He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;

the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work.

¹⁴ He makes grass grow for the cattle,

and plants for man to cultivate--

bringing forth food from the earth: ⁷

¹⁵ wine that gladdens the heart of man,

oil to make his face shine,

and bread that sustains his heart.

¹⁶ The trees of the LORD are well watered,

the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.

¹⁷ There the birds make their nests;

the stork has its home in the pine trees.

¹⁸ The high mountains belong to the wild goats;

the crags are a refuge for the coneys. ^B

¹⁹ The moon marks off the seasons,

and the sun knows when to go down.

²⁰ You bring darkness, it becomes night,

and all the beasts of the forest prowl.

²¹ The lions roar for their prey

and seek their food from God.

²² The sun rises, and they steal away;

they return and lie down in their dens.

²³ Then man goes out to his work,

to his labor until evening.

²⁴ How many are your works, O LORD!

In wisdom you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

²⁵ There is the sea, vast and spacious,

teeming with creatures beyond number--

living things both large and small.

²⁶ There the ships go to and fro,

and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. ⁸

²⁷ These all look to you

to give them their food at the proper time.

²⁸ When you give it to them,

they gather it up;

when you open your hand,

they are satisfied with good things.

²⁹ When you hide your face,

they are terrified;

when you take away their breath,

they die and return to the dust.

³⁰ When you send your Spirit,

they are created,

and you renew the face of the earth.

³¹ May the glory of the LORD endure forever;

may the LORD rejoice in his works--

³² he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,

who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

³³ I will sing to the LORD all my life;

I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

³⁴May my meditation be pleasing to him,

as I rejoice in the LORD.

³⁵ But may sinners vanish from the earth

and the wicked be no more.

Praise the LORD, O my soul.

Praise the LORD. ^{C 9}

PSALMS: 134

A song of ascents.

¹ Praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD

who minister by night in the house of the LORD.

² Lift up your hands in the sanctuary

and praise the LORD.

³ May the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth,

bless you from Zion. ¹⁰

PROVERBS: 14

14 ¹ The wise woman builds her house,

but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

² He whose walk is upright fears the LORD,

but he whose ways are devious despises him.

³ A fool's talk brings a rod to his back,

but the lips of the wise protect them.

⁴ Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty,

but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest.

⁵ A truthful witness does not deceive,

but a false witness pours out lies.

⁶ The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none,

but knowledge comes easily to the discerning.

⁷ Stay away from a foolish man,

for you will not find knowledge on his lips.

⁸ The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways,

but the folly of fools is deception.

⁹ Fools mock at making amends for sin,

but goodwill is found among the upright.

¹⁰ Each heart knows its own bitterness,

and no one else can share its joy.

¹¹ The house of the wicked will be destroyed,

but the tent of the upright will flourish. ¹¹

¹² There is a way that seems right to a man,

but in the end it leads to death.

¹³ Even in laughter the heart may ache,

and joy may end in grief.

¹⁴ The faithless will be fully repaid for their ways,

and the good man rewarded for his.

¹⁵ A simple man believes anything,

but a prudent man gives thought to his steps.

¹⁶ A wise man fears the LORD and shuns evil,

but a fool is hotheaded and reckless.

¹⁷ A quick-tempered man does foolish things,

and a crafty man is hated.

¹⁸ The simple inherit folly,

but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.

¹⁹ Evil men will bow down in the presence of the good,

and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.

²⁰ The poor are shunned even by their neighbors,

but the rich have many friends.

²¹ He who despises his neighbor sins,

but blessed is he who is kind to the needy.

²² Do not those who plot evil go astray?

But those who plan what is good ^{find A} love and faithfulness. ¹²

²³ All hard work brings a profit,

but mere talk leads only to poverty.

²⁴ The wealth of the wise is their crown,

but the folly of fools yields folly.

²⁵ A truthful witness saves lives,

but a false witness is deceitful.

²⁶ He who fears the LORD has a secure fortress,

and for his children it will be a refuge.

²⁷ The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life,

turning a man from the snares of death.

²⁸ A large population is a king's glory,

but without subjects a prince is ruined.

²⁹ A patient man has great understanding,

but a quick-tempered man displays folly.

³⁰ A heart at peace gives life to the body,

but envy rots the bones.

³¹ He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,

but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

³² When calamity comes, the wicked are brought down,

but even in death the righteous have a refuge.

³³ Wisdom reposes in the heart of the discerning

and even among fools she lets herself be known. B ¹³

³⁴ Righteousness exalts a nation,

but sin is a disgrace to any people.

³⁵ A king delights in a wise servant,

but a shameful servant incurs his wrath. ¹⁴

OLD TESTAMENT: DEUTERONOMY 28:1 - 68

28 ¹ If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.

² All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:

³ You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

⁴ The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock--the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

⁵ Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.

⁶ You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

⁷ The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.

⁸ The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

⁹ The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. ¹⁰ Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you.

¹¹ The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity--in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground--in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you.

¹² The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, ¹⁵ to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. ¹³ The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. ¹⁴ Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

¹⁵ However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶ You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

¹⁷ Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

¹⁸ The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

¹⁹ You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

²⁰ The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. ^{A 21} The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. ²² The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. ²³ The sky over your head will be ¹⁶ bronze, the ground beneath you iron. ²⁴ The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. ²⁶ Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. ²⁷ The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. ²⁸ The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. ²⁹ At midday you will grope about like a blind man in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.

³⁰ You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. ³¹ Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.

³² Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. ³³ A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. ³⁴ The sights you see will drive you mad. ³⁵ The LORD will ¹⁷ afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

³⁶ The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive you.

³⁸ You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. ³⁹ You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.

⁴¹ You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. ⁴² Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.

⁴³ The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. ⁴⁴ He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.

⁴⁵ All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.

⁴⁶ They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.

⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the LORD your ¹⁸ God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity,

⁴⁸ therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

⁴⁹ The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,

⁵⁰ a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. ⁵¹ They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. ⁵² They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you.

⁵³ Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you. ⁵⁴ Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, ⁵⁵ and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities. ⁵⁶ The most gentle and sensitive woman among you--so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot--will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter ⁵⁷ the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For she intends to eat them secretly during the siege and in ¹⁹ the distress that your enemy will inflict on you in your cities.

⁵⁸ If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name--the LORD your God—⁵⁹ the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses. ⁶⁰ He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹ The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. ⁶² You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God. ⁶³ Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

⁶⁴ Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods--gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. ⁶⁶ You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you will say, "If only it were evening!" and in the evening, "If only it were morning!"--because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.

⁶⁸ The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male ²⁰ and female slaves, but no one will buy you. ²¹

NEW TESTAMENT: LUKE 11:14 - 36

¹⁴ Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. ¹⁵ But some of them said, "By Beelzebub, ^G the prince of demons, he is driving out demons." ¹⁶ Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.

¹⁷ Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: "Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. ¹⁸ If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub. ¹⁹ Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. ²⁰ But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.

²¹ "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.

²² But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.

²³ "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.

²⁴ "When an evil ^H spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, `I will return to the house I left.' ²⁵ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. ²⁶ Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first." ^{22 27} As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you."

²⁸ He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."

²⁹ As the crowds increased, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. ³⁰ For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. ³¹ The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one ^I greater than Solomon is here. ³² The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.

³³ "No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. ³⁴ Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. ³⁵ See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. ³⁶ Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you." ²³

1 Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Bible NIV. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 SoftKey Multimedia Inc. All Rights Reserved

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21 Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Bible NIV. Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 SoftKey Multimedia Inc. All Rights Reserved

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 John 3:16-21 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, F that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.G 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." H