December 11

John 17:6-19

[6] “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. [7] Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. [8] For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. [9] I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. [10] All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. [11] And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. [12] While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. [13] But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. [14] I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. [15] I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. [16] They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. [17] Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. [18] As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. [19] And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Revelation 8

The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer

[1] When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. [2] Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. [3] And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, [4] and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. [5] Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

The Seven Trumpets

[6] Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them.

[7] The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.

[8] The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. [9] A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

[10] The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. [11] The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.

[12] The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night.

[13] Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!”

Job 33:1-11

Elihu Rebukes Job

    [1] “But now, hear my speech, O Job,

        and listen to all my words. 

    [2] Behold, I open my mouth;

        the tongue in my mouth speaks. 

    [3] My words declare the uprightness of my heart,

        and what my lips know they speak sincerely. 

    [4] The Spirit of God has made me,

        and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. 

    [5] Answer me, if you can;

        set your words in order before me; take your stand. 

    [6] Behold, I am toward God as you are;

        I too was pinched off from a piece of clay. 

    [7] Behold, no fear of me need terrify you;

        my pressure will not be heavy upon you.

    [8] “Surely you have spoken in my ears,

        and I have heard the sound of your words. 

    [9] You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression;

        I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me. 

    [10] Behold, he finds occasions against me,

        he counts me as his enemy, 

    [11] he puts my feet in the stocks

        and watches all my paths.’

Amos 7

Warning Visions

[1] This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings. [2] When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, 

    “O Lord GOD, please forgive!

        How can Jacob stand?

        He is so small!” 

    [3] The LORD relented concerning this:

        “It shall not be,” said the LORD.

    [4] This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. [5] Then I said, 

    “O Lord GOD, please cease!

        How can Jacob stand?

        He is so small!” 

    [6] The LORD relented concerning this:

        “This also shall not be,” said the Lord GOD.

    [7] This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. [8] And the LORD said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, 

    “Behold, I am setting a plumb line

        in the midst of my people Israel;

        I will never again pass by them; 

    [9] the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,

        and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,

        and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

    Amos Accused

[10] Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. [11] For thus Amos has said, 

    “‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword,

        and Israel must go into exile

        away from his land.’”

    [12] And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there, [13] but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

[14] Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. [15] But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ [16] Now therefore hear the word of the LORD. 

    “You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel,

        and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’

    [17] Therefore thus says the LORD: 

    “‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city,

        and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,

        and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line;

    you yourself shall die in an unclean land,

        and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’”

Amos 8

The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning

[1] This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. [2] And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, 

    “The end has come upon my people Israel;

        I will never again pass by them. 

    [3] The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,”

    declares the Lord GOD.

    “So many dead bodies!”

    “They are thrown everywhere!”

    “Silence!”

    [4] Hear this, you who trample on the needy

        and bring the poor of the land to an end, 

    [5] saying, “When will the new moon be over,

        that we may sell grain?

    And the Sabbath,

        that we may offer wheat for sale,

    that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great

        and deal deceitfully with false balances, 

    [6] that we may buy the poor for silver

        and the needy for a pair of sandals

        and sell the chaff of the wheat?”

    [7] The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:

    “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. 

    [8] Shall not the land tremble on this account,

        and everyone mourn who dwells in it,

    and all of it rise like the Nile,

        and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”

    [9] “And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD,

        “I will make the sun go down at noon

        and darken the earth in broad daylight. 

    [10] I will turn your feasts into mourning

        and all your songs into lamentation;

    I will bring sackcloth on every waist

        and baldness on every head;

    I will make it like the mourning for an only son

        and the end of it like a bitter day.

    [11] “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD,

        “when I will send a famine on the land—

    not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,

        but of hearing the words of the LORD. 

    [12] They shall wander from sea to sea,

        and from north to east;

    they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD,

        but they shall not find it.

    [13] “In that day the lovely virgins and the young men

        shall faint for thirst. 

    [14] Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria,

        and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’

    and, ‘As the Way of Beersheba lives,’

        they shall fall, and never rise again.”

Amos 9

The Destruction of Israel

[1] I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: 

    “Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,

        and shatter them on the heads of all the people;

    and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;

        not one of them shall flee away;

        not one of them shall escape.

    [2] “If they dig into Sheol,

        from there shall my hand take them;

    if they climb up to heaven,

        from there I will bring them down. 

    [3] If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,

        from there I will search them out and take them;

    and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,

        there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them. 

    [4] And if they go into captivity before their enemies,

        there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;

    and I will fix my eyes upon them

        for evil and not for good.”

    [5] The Lord GOD of hosts,

    he who touches the earth and it melts,

        and all who dwell in it mourn,

    and all of it rises like the Nile,

        and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt; 

    [6] who builds his upper chambers in the heavens

        and founds his vault upon the earth;

    who calls for the waters of the sea

        and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—

    the LORD is his name.

    [7] “Are you not like the Cushites to me,

        O people of Israel?” declares the LORD.

    “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,

        and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir? 

    [8] Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom,

        and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,

        except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”

    declares the LORD.

    [9] “For behold, I will command,

        and shake the house of Israel among all the nations

    as one shakes with a sieve,

        but no pebble shall fall to the earth. 

    [10] All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,

        who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’

    The Restoration of Israel

    [11] “In that day I will raise up

        the booth of David that is fallen

    and repair its breaches,

        and raise up its ruins

        and rebuild it as in the days of old, 

    [12] that they may possess the remnant of Edom

        and all the nations who are called by my name,”

        declares the LORD who does this.

    [13] “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD,

        “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper

        and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;

    the mountains shall drip sweet wine,

        and all the hills shall flow with it. 

    [14] I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,

        and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;

    they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,

        and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. 

    [15] I will plant them on their land,

        and they shall never again be uprooted

        out of the land that I have given them,”

    says the LORD your God.