Hosea 7-9 71 When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside. 2 They don’t consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own deeds have engulfed them. They are before my face. 3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies. 4 They are all adulterers. They are burning like an oven that the baker stops stirring, from the kneading of the dough, until it is leavened. 5 On the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine. He joined his hand with mockers. 6 For they have prepared their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait. Their baker sleeps all the night. In the morning it burns as a flaming fire. 7 They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges. All their kings have fallen. There is no one among them who calls to me. 8 Ephraim, he mixes himself among the nations. Ephraim is a pancake not turned over. 9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he doesn’t realize it. Indeed, gray hairs are here and there on him, and he doesn’t realize it. 10 The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they haven’t returned to Yahweh their God, nor sought him, for all this. 11 “Ephraim is like an easily deceived dove, without understanding. They call to Egypt. They go to Assyria. 12 When they go, I will spread my net on them. I will bring them down like the birds of the sky. I will chastise them, as their congregation has heard. 13 Woe to them! For they have wandered from me. Destruction to them! For they have trespassed against me. Though I would redeem them, yet they have spoken lies against me. 14 They haven’t cried to me with their heart, but they howl on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and new wine. They turn away from me. 15 Though I have taught and strengthened their arms, yet they plot evil against me. 16 They return, but not to the Most High. They are like a faulty bow. Their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This will be their derision in the land of Egypt. 81 “Put the trumpet to your lips! Something like an eagle is over Yahweh’s house, because they have broken my covenant, and rebelled against my law. 2 They cry to me, ‘My God, we Israel acknowledge you!’ 3 Israel has cast off that which is good. The enemy will pursue him. 4 They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off. 5 Let Samaria throw out his calf idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity? 6 For this is even from Israel! The workman made it, and it is no God; indeed, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces. 7 For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up. 8 Israel is swallowed up. Now they are among the nations like a worthless thing. 9 For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers for himself. 10 But although they sold themselves among the nations, I will now gather them; and they begin to waste away because of the oppression of the king of mighty ones. 11 Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they became for him altars for sinning. 12 I wrote for him the many things of my law; but they were regarded as a strange thing. 13 As for the sacrifices of my offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it; But Yahweh doesn’t accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins. They will return to Egypt. 14 For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire on his cities, and it will devour its fortresses.” 91 Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor. 2 The threshing floor and the wine press won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her. 3 They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria. 4 They won’t pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted; for their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into Yahweh’s house. 5 What will you do in the day of solemn assembly, and in the day of the feast of Yahweh? 6 For, behold, they have gone away from destruction. Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver. Thorns will be in their tents. 7 The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great. 8 A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God. 9 They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their sins. 10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved. 11 As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, no one with child, and no conception. 12 Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them! 13 I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place; but Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer. 14 Give them—Yahweh what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 “All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels. 16 Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb.” 17 My God will cast them away, because they didn’t listen to him; and they will be wanderers among the nations.

Job 24:13-25 2413 “These are of those who rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways, nor stay in its paths. 14 The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief. 15 The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me.’ He disguises his face. 16 In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don’t know the light. 17 For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness. 18 “They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed in the earth. They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards. 19 Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned. 20 The womb will forget him. The worm will feed sweetly on him. He will be no more remembered. Unrighteousness will be broken as a tree. 21 He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow. 22 Yet God preserves the mighty by his power. He rises up who has no assurance of life. 23 God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways. 24 They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain. 25 If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?”

John 14:22-31 1422 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, what has happened that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him. 24 He who doesn’t love me doesn’t keep my words. The word which you hear isn’t mine, but the Father’s who sent me. 25 I have said these things to you while still living with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. 28 You heard how I told you, ‘I go away, and I come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I said ‘I am going to my Father;’ for the Father is greater than I. 29 Now I have told you before it happens so that when it happens, you may believe. 30 I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me. 31 But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded me, even so I do. Arise, let’s go from here.

Revelation 2:1-17 21 “To the angel of the assembly in Ephesus write: “He who holds the seven stars in his right hand, he who walks among the seven golden lamp stands says these things: 2 “I know your works, and your toil and perseverance, and that you can’t tolerate evil men, and have tested those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and found them false. 3 You have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake, and have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you left your first love. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your lamp stand out of its place, unless you repent. 6 But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God. 8 “To the angel of the assembly in Smyrna write: “The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life says these things: 9 “I know your works, oppression, and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Don’t be afraid of the things which you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested; and you will have oppression for ten days. Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. He who overcomes won’t be harmed by the second death. 12 “To the angel of the assembly in Pergamum write: “He who has the sharp two-edged sword says these things: 13 “I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. You hold firmly to my name, and didn’t deny my faith in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 14 But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. 15 So you also have some who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans likewise. 16 Repent therefore, or else I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war against them with the sword of my mouth. 17 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he who receives it.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.