August 24: Job 15-16; Psalm 50; Luke 13

Job 15-16

Eliphaz Accuses: Job Does Not Fear God

15 Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

  “Should a wise man answer with windy knowledge,
    and fill his belly with the east wind?
  Should he argue in unprofitable talk,
    or in words with which he can do no good?
  But you are doing away with the fear of God¹
    and hindering meditation before God.
  For your iniquity teaches your mouth,
    and you choose the tongue of the crafty.
  Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
    your own lips testify against you.
  “Are you the first man who was born?
    Or were you brought forth before the hills?
  Have you listened in the council of God?
    And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
  What do you know that we do not know?
    What do you understand that is not clear to us?
  Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us,
    older than your father.
  Are the comforts of God too small for you,
    or the word that deals gently with you?
  Why does your heart carry you away,
    and why do your eyes flash,
  that you turn your spirit against God
    and bring such words out of your mouth?
  What is man, that he can be pure?
    Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?
  Behold, God² puts no trust in his holy ones,
    and the heavens are not pure in his sight;
  how much less one who is abominable and corrupt,
    a man who drinks injustice like water!
  “I will show you; hear me,
    and what I have seen I will declare
  (what wise men have told,
    without hiding it from their fathers,
  to whom alone the land was given,
    and no stranger passed among them).
  The wicked man writhes in pain all his days,
    through all the years that are laid up for the ruthless.
  Dreadful sounds are in his ears;
    in prosperity the destroyer will come upon him.
  He does not believe that he will return out of darkness,
    and he is marked for the sword.
  He wanders abroad for bread, saying, ‘Where is it?’
    He knows that a day of darkness is ready at his hand;
  distress and anguish terrify him;
    they prevail against him, like a king ready for battle.
  Because he has stretched out his hand against God
    and defies the Almighty,
  running stubbornly against him
    with a thickly bossed shield;
  because he has covered his face with his fat
    and gathered fat upon his waist
  and has lived in desolate cities,
    in houses that none should inhabit,
    which were ready to become heaps of ruins;
  he will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure,
    nor will his possessions spread over the earth;³
  he will not depart from darkness;
    the flame will dry up his shoots,
    and by the breath of his mouth he will depart.
  Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself,
    for emptiness will be his payment.
  It will be paid in full before his time,
    and his branch will not be green.
  He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine,
    and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.
  For the company of the godless is barren,
    and fire consumes the tents of bribery.
  They conceive trouble and give birth to evil,
    and their womb prepares deceit.”

Job Replies: Miserable Comforters Are You

16 Then Job answered and said:

  “I have heard many such things;
    miserable comforters are you all.
  Shall windy words have an end?
    Or what provokes you that you answer?
  I also could speak as you do,
    if you were in my place;
  I could join words together against you
    and shake my head at you.
  I could strengthen you with my mouth,
    and the solace of my lips would assuage your pain.
  “If I speak, my pain is not assuaged,
    and if I forbear, how much of it leaves me?
  Surely now God has worn me out;
    he has⁴ made desolate all my company.
  And he has shriveled me up,
    which is a witness against me,
  and my leanness has risen up against me;
    it testifies to my face.
  He has torn me in his wrath and hated me;
    he has gnashed his teeth at me;
    my adversary sharpens his eyes against me.
  Men have gaped at me with their mouth;
    they have struck me insolently on the cheek;
    they mass themselves together against me.
  God gives me up to the ungodly
    and casts me into the hands of the wicked.
  I was at ease, and he broke me apart;
    he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces;
  he set me up as his target;
    his archers surround me.
  He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare;
    he pours out my gall on the ground.
  He breaks me with breach upon breach;
    he runs upon me like a warrior.
  I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin
    and have laid my strength in the dust.
  My face is red with weeping,
    and on my eyelids is deep darkness,
  although there is no violence in my hands,
    and my prayer is pure.
  “O earth, cover not my blood,
    and let my cry find no resting place.
  Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven,
    and he who testifies for me is on high.
  My friends scorn me;
    my eye pours out tears to God,
  that he would argue the case of a man with God,
    as⁵ a son of man does with his neighbor.
  For when a few years have come
    I shall go the way from which I shall not return.

(ESV)

Psalm 50

God Himself Is Judge

A Psalm of Asaph.

50   The Mighty One, God the LORD,
    speaks and summons the earth
    from the rising of the sun to its setting.
  Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
    God shines forth.
  Our God comes; he does not keep silence;¹
    before him is a devouring fire,
    around him a mighty tempest.
  He calls to the heavens above
    and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
  “Gather to me my faithful ones,
    who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
  The heavens declare his righteousness,
    for God himself is judge! Selah
  “Hear, O my people, and I will speak;
    O Israel, I will testify against you.
    I am God, your God.
  Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
    your burnt offerings are continually before me.
  I will not accept a bull from your house
    or goats from your folds.
  For every beast of the forest is mine,
    the cattle on a thousand hills.
  I know all the birds of the hills,
    and all that moves in the field is mine.
  “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
    for the world and its fullness are mine.
  Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?
  Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,²
    and perform your vows to the Most High,
  and call upon me in the day of trouble;
    I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
  But to the wicked God says:
    “What right have you to recite my statutes
    or take my covenant on your lips?
  For you hate discipline,
    and you cast my words behind you.
  If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
    and you keep company with adulterers.
  “You give your mouth free rein for evil,
    and your tongue frames deceit.
  You sit and speak against your brother;
    you slander your own mother's son.
  These things you have done, and I have been silent;
    you thought that I³ was one like yourself.
  But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.
  “Mark this, then, you who forget God,
    lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
  The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
    to one who orders his way rightly
    I will show the salvation of God!”

(ESV)

Luke 13

Repent or Perish

13 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree

And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure.Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

A Woman with a Disabling Spirit

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.

The Mustard Seed and the Leaven

He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”

And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”

The Narrow Door

He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

Lament over Jerusalem

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

(ESV)