Luke 18:19-27
[19] And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. [20] You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” [21] And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” [22] When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” [23] But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. [24] Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! [25] For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” [26] Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” [27] But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
Revelation 11
The Two Witnesses
[1] Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, [2] but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. [3] And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
[4] These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. [5] And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. [6] They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. [7] And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, [8] and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. [9] For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, [10] and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. [11] But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. [12] Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. [13] And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.
[14] The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.
The Seventh Trumpet
[15] Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” [16] And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, [17] saying,
“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
who is and who was,
for you have taken your great power
and begun to reign.
[18] The nations raged,
but your wrath came,
and the time for the dead to be judged,
and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,
and those who fear your name,
both small and great,
and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”
[19] Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
Job 34:21-37
[21] “For his eyes are on the ways of a man,
and he sees all his steps.
[22] There is no gloom or deep darkness
where evildoers may hide themselves.
[23] For God has no need to consider a man further,
that he should go before God in judgment.
[24] He shatters the mighty without investigation
and sets others in their place.
[25] Thus, knowing their works,
he overturns them in the night, and they are crushed.
[26] He strikes them for their wickedness
in a place for all to see,
[27] because they turned aside from following him
and had no regard for any of his ways,
[28] so that they caused the cry of the poor to come to him,
and he heard the cry of the afflicted—
[29] When he is quiet, who can condemn?
When he hides his face, who can behold him,
whether it be a nation or a man?—
[30] that a godless man should not reign,
that he should not ensnare the people.
[31] “For has anyone said to God,
‘I have borne punishment; I will not offend any more;
[32] teach me what I do not see;
if I have done iniquity, I will do it no more’?
[33] Will he then make repayment to suit you,
because you reject it?
For you must choose, and not I;
therefore declare what you know.
[34] Men of understanding will say to me,
and the wise man who hears me will say:
[35] ‘Job speaks without knowledge;
his words are without insight.’
[36] Would that Job were tried to the end,
because he answers like wicked men.
[37] For he adds rebellion to his sin;
he claps his hands among us
and multiplies his words against God.”
Micah 1
[1] The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
The Coming Destruction
[2] Hear, you peoples, all of you;
pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it,
and let the Lord GOD be a witness against you,
the Lord from his holy temple.
[3] For behold, the LORD is coming out of his place,
and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.
[4] And the mountains will melt under him,
and the valleys will split open,
like wax before the fire,
like waters poured down a steep place.
[5] All this is for the transgression of Jacob
and for the sins of the house of Israel.
What is the transgression of Jacob?
Is it not Samaria?
And what is the high place of Judah?
Is it not Jerusalem?
[6] Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country,
a place for planting vineyards,
and I will pour down her stones into the valley
and uncover her foundations.
[7] All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces,
all her wages shall be burned with fire,
and all her idols I will lay waste,
for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them,
and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.
[8] For this I will lament and wail;
I will go stripped and naked;
I will make lamentation like the jackals,
and mourning like the ostriches.
[9] For her wound is incurable,
and it has come to Judah;
it has reached to the gate of my people,
to Jerusalem.
[10] Tell it not in Gath;
weep not at all;
in Beth-le-aphrah
roll yourselves in the dust.
[11] Pass on your way,
inhabitants of Shaphir,
in nakedness and shame;
the inhabitants of Zaanan
do not come out;
the lamentation of Beth-ezel
shall take away from you its standing place.
[12] For the inhabitants of Maroth
wait anxiously for good,
because disaster has come down from the LORD
to the gate of Jerusalem.
[13] Harness the steeds to the chariots,
inhabitants of Lachish;
it was the beginning of sin
to the daughter of Zion,
for in you were found
the transgressions of Israel.
[14] Therefore you shall give parting gifts
to Moresheth-gath;
the houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing
to the kings of Israel.
[15] I will again bring a conqueror to you,
inhabitants of Mareshah;
the glory of Israel
shall come to Adullam.
[16] Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair,
for the children of your delight;
make yourselves as bald as the eagle,
for they shall go from you into exile.
Micah 2
Woe to the Oppressors
[1] Woe to those who devise wickedness
and work evil on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in the power of their hand.
[2] They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them away;
they oppress a man and his house,
a man and his inheritance.
[3] Therefore thus says the LORD:
behold, against this family I am devising disaster,
from which you cannot remove your necks,
and you shall not walk haughtily,
for it will be a time of disaster.
[4] In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you
and moan bitterly,
and say, “We are utterly ruined;
he changes the portion of my people;
how he removes it from me!
To an apostate he allots our fields.”
[5] Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot
in the assembly of the LORD.
[6] “Do not preach”—thus they preach—
“one should not preach of such things;
disgrace will not overtake us.”
[7] Should this be said, O house of Jacob?
Has the LORD grown impatient?
Are these his deeds?
Do not my words do good
to him who walks uprightly?
[8] But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;
you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly
with no thought of war.
[9] The women of my people you drive out
from their delightful houses;
from their young children you take away
my splendor forever.
[10] Arise and go,
for this is no place to rest,
because of uncleanness that destroys
with a grievous destruction.
[11] If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,
saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”
he would be the preacher for this people!
[12] I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob;
I will gather the remnant of Israel;
I will set them together
like sheep in a fold,
like a flock in its pasture,
a noisy multitude of men.
[13] He who opens the breach goes up before them;
they break through and pass the gate,
going out by it.
Their king passes on before them,
the LORD at their head.
Micah 3
Rulers and Prophets Denounced
[1] And I said:
Hear, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!
Is it not for you to know justice?—
[2] you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin from off my people
and their flesh from off their bones,
[3] who eat the flesh of my people,
and flay their skin from off them,
and break their bones in pieces
and chop them up like meat in a pot,
like flesh in a cauldron.
[4] Then they will cry to the LORD,
but he will not answer them;
he will hide his face from them at that time,
because they have made their deeds evil.
[5] Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets
who lead my people astray,
who cry “Peace”
when they have something to eat,
but declare war against him
who puts nothing into their mouths.
[6] Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,
and darkness to you, without divination.
The sun shall go down on the prophets,
and the day shall be black over them;
[7] the seers shall be disgraced,
and the diviners put to shame;
they shall all cover their lips,
for there is no answer from God.
[8] But as for me, I am filled with power,
with the Spirit of the LORD,
and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression
and to Israel his sin.
[9] Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel,
who detest justice
and make crooked all that is straight,
[10] who build Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with iniquity.
[11] Its heads give judgment for a bribe;
its priests teach for a price;
its prophets practice divination for money;
yet they lean on the LORD and say,
“Is not the LORD in the midst of us?
No disaster shall come upon us.”
[12] Therefore because of you
Zion shall be plowed as a field;
Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,
and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
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