Joel 1 11 Yahweh’s word that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. 2 Hear this, you elders, And listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? 3 Tell your children about it, and have your children tell their children, and their children, another generation. 4 What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten. 5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. 6 For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness. 7 He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. 8 Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth! 9 The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Yahweh’s house. The priests, Yahweh’s ministers, mourn. 10 The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. 11 Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. 12 The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men. 13 Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house. 14 Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh. 15 Alas for the day! For the day of Yahweh is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the Almighty. 16 Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17 The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. 18 How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. 19 Yahweh, I cry to you, For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field. 20 Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, for the water brooks have dried up, And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Job 28:1-11 281 “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold which they refine. 2 Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted out of the ore. 3 Man sets an end to darkness, and searches out, to the furthest bound, the stones of obscurity and of thick darkness. 4 He breaks open a shaft away from where people live. They are forgotten by the foot. They hang far from men, they swing back and forth. 5 As for the earth, out of it comes bread; Underneath it is turned up as it were by fire. 6 Sapphires come from its rocks. It has dust of gold. 7 That path no bird of prey knows, neither has the falcon’s eye seen it. 8 The proud animals have not trodden it, nor has the fierce lion passed by there. 9 He puts his hand on the flinty rock, and he overturns the mountains by the roots. 10 He cuts out channels among the rocks. His eye sees every precious thing. 11 He binds the streams that they don’t trickle. The thing that is hidden he brings out to light.

John 15:18-27 1518 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates me, hates my Father also. 24 If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father. 25 But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ 26 “When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. 27 You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

Revelation 3:14-22 314 “To the angel of the assembly in Laodicea write: “The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of God’s creation, says these things: 15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me. 21 He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.”

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.