August 25: Job 17-19; Psalm 51; Luke 14

Job 17-19

Job Continues: Where Then Is My Hope?

17   “My spirit is broken; my days are extinct;
    the graveyard is ready for me.
  Surely there are mockers about me,
    and my eye dwells on their provocation.
  “Lay down a pledge for me with you;
    who is there who will put up security for me?
  Since you have closed their hearts to understanding,
    therefore you will not let them triumph.
  He who informs against his friends to get a share of their property—
    the eyes of his children will fail.
  “He has made me a byword of the peoples,
    and I am one before whom men spit.
  My eye has grown dim from vexation,
    and all my members are like a shadow.
  The upright are appalled at this,
    and the innocent stirs himself up against the godless.
  Yet the righteous holds to his way,
    and he who has clean hands grows stronger and stronger.
  But you, come on again, all of you,
    and I shall not find a wise man among you.
  My days are past; my plans are broken off,
    the desires of my heart.
  They make night into day:
    ‘The light,’ they say, ‘is near to the darkness.’¹
  If I hope for Sheol as my house,
    if I make my bed in darkness,
  if I say to the pit, ‘You are my father,’
    and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’
  where then is my hope?
    Who will see my hope?
  Will it go down to the bars of Sheol?
    Shall we descend together into the dust?”²

Bildad Speaks: God Punishes the Wicked

18 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

  “How long will you hunt for words?
    Consider, and then we will speak.
  Why are we counted as cattle?
    Why are we stupid in your sight?
  You who tear yourself in your anger,
    shall the earth be forsaken for you,
    or the rock be removed out of its place?
  “Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out,
    and the flame of his fire does not shine.
  The light is dark in his tent,
    and his lamp above him is put out.
  His strong steps are shortened,
    and his own schemes throw him down.
  For he is cast into a net by his own feet,
    and he walks on its mesh.
  A trap seizes him by the heel;
    a snare lays hold of him.
  A rope is hidden for him in the ground,
    a trap for him in the path.
  Terrors frighten him on every side,
    and chase him at his heels.
  His strength is famished,
    and calamity is ready for his stumbling.
  It consumes the parts of his skin;
    the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.
  He is torn from the tent in which he trusted
    and is brought to the king of terrors.
  In his tent dwells that which is none of his;
    sulfur is scattered over his habitation.
  His roots dry up beneath,
    and his branches wither above.
  His memory perishes from the earth,
    and he has no name in the street.
  He is thrust from light into darkness,
    and driven out of the world.
  He has no posterity or progeny among his people,
    and no survivor where he used to live.
  They of the west are appalled at his day,
    and horror seizes them of the east.
  Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,
    such is the place of him who knows not God.”

Job Replies: My Redeemer Lives

19 Then Job answered and said:

  “How long will you torment me
    and break me in pieces with words?
  These ten times you have cast reproach upon me;
    are you not ashamed to wrong me?
  And even if it be true that I have erred,
    my error remains with myself.
  If indeed you magnify yourselves against me
    and make my disgrace an argument against me,
  know then that God has put me in the wrong
    and closed his net about me.
  Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;
    I call for help, but there is no justice.
  He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,
    and he has set darkness upon my paths.
  He has stripped from me my glory
    and taken the crown from my head.
  He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
    and my hope has he pulled up like a tree.
  He has kindled his wrath against me
    and counts me as his adversary.
  His troops come on together;
    they have cast up their siege ramp³ against me
    and encamp around my tent.
  “He has put my brothers far from me,
    and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.
  My relatives have failed me,
    my close friends have forgotten me.
  The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;
    I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
  I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer;
    I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy.
  My breath is strange to my wife,
    and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
  Even young children despise me;
    when I rise they talk against me.
  All my intimate friends abhor me,
    and those whom I loved have turned against me.
  My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh,
    and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
  Have mercy on me, have mercy on me, O you my friends,
    for the hand of God has touched me!
  Why do you, like God, pursue me?
    Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?
  “Oh that my words were written!
    Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
  Oh that with an iron pen and lead
    they were engraved in the rock forever!
  For I know that my Redeemer lives,
    and at the last he will stand upon the earth.⁴
  And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
    yet in⁵ my flesh I shall see God,
  whom I shall see for myself,
    and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
    My heart faints within me!
  If you say, ‘How we will pursue him!’
    and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him,’⁶
  be afraid of the sword,
    for wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
    that you may know there is a judgment.”

(ESV)

Psalm 51

Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

51   Have mercy on me,¹ O God,
    according to your steadfast love;
  according to your abundant mercy
    blot out my transgressions.
  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
    and cleanse me from my sin!
  For I know my transgressions,
    and my sin is ever before me.
  Against you, you only, have I sinned
    and done what is evil in your sight,
  so that you may be justified in your words
    and blameless in your judgment.
  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
    and in sin did my mother conceive me.
  Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
    and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
  Let me hear joy and gladness;
    let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
  Hide your face from my sins,
    and blot out all my iniquities.
  Create in me a clean heart, O God,
    and renew a right² spirit within me.
  Cast me not away from your presence,
    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
  Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
    and uphold me with a willing spirit.
  Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.
  Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
    O God of my salvation,
    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
  O Lord, open my lips,
    and my mouth will declare your praise.
  For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
    you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
  Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
    build up the walls of Jerusalem;
  then will you delight in right sacrifices,
    in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

(ESV)

Luke 14

Healing of a Man on the Sabbath

14 One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son¹ or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”And they could not reply to these things.

The Parable of the Wedding Feast

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him,and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The Parable of the Great Banquet

He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers² or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant³ to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.For I tell you,⁴ none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

The Cost of Discipleship

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Salt Without Taste Is Worthless

“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

(ESV)