Thursday, December 31, 2020

 

Isaiah 26

¹In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts. ²Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith. ³You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. ⁴Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal. ⁵He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust. ⁶Feet trample it down-- the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor.

⁷The path of the righteous is level; O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth. ⁸Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. ⁹My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness. ¹⁰Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the LORD. ¹¹O LORD, your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

¹²LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us. ¹³O LORD, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honor. ¹⁴They are now dead, they live no more; those departed spirits do not rise. You punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory of them. ¹⁵You have enlarged the nation, O LORD; you have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for yourself; you have extended all the borders of the land.

¹⁶LORD, they came to you in their distress; when you disciplined them, they could barely whisper a prayer. ¹⁷As a woman with child and about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pain, so were we in your presence, O LORD. ¹⁸We were with child, we writhed in pain, but we gave birth to wind. We have not brought salvation to the earth; we have not given birth to people of the world.

¹⁹But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.

²⁰Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. ²¹See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her slain no longer.

 

 

Psalm 1

¹Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. ²But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. ³He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. ⁴Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. ⁵Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. ⁶For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

 

 

John 1:29–42

²⁹The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' ³¹I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."

³²Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. ³³I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' ³⁴I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

³⁵The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. ³⁶When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"

³⁷When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. ³⁸Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?"

They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

³⁹"Come," he replied, "and you will see."

So they went and saw where he was staying, and spent that day with him. It was about the tenth hour.

⁴⁰Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. ⁴¹The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). ⁴²And he brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas" (which, when translated, is Peter).