Read To Me Daily Semester 4Sample

EZRA 7-8:
Yesterday in Ezra we read of how King Darius completely sided with the Israelites seeking to reestablish the temple worship. Note that the letter to Darius from the government officials was rather complementary and not threatening loss to the king’s interests as the letter from the earlier officials. Remember also that this King Darius is the one who was duped into putting Daniel into the lions’ den, and who then issued a decree that everyone must respect Daniel’s God.

ISAIAH 32:
Isaiah’s prophecy in yesterday’s reading certainly came true!

Is. 31:8 NLT “The Assyrians will be destroyed, but not by the swords of men.
The sword of God will strike them, and they will panic and flee.

That happened on the night recorded in 2Kings 19 where the Lord put to death 185,000 men. 

2Ki. 19:35b NLT “When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere.”

2CORINTHIANS 13:
Yesterday in 2nd Corinthians 12 we read the reasons why Paul boasted about his weaknesses— something that is utterly unintuitive for worldly people to understand. Then Paul continued to speak about what he hoped NOT to find on his upcoming visit to the Corinthian believers. 

Chapter 13 is another good place to tout the virtues of a good meaning based translation. Paul uses the word ‘test’ in three different senses in this chapter. This makes several verses hard to understand in a literal translation. The NLT and the GNT have done a good job helping the reader understand the different senses in which Paul used that word.

We’ll start today re-reading the last paragraph of chapter 12.

Let’s pray.
Dear Lord Jesus, thank You for Paul sharing about his “painful physical ailment,” and thank You that You did not heal him. You had a purpose for that illness. You entrusted him with that illness as a gift, because You knew it would help him. You even allowed Satan to torment him through that illness. But it was not Satan who caused it, and it was your will to use that illness for your glory. And what was the result? Paul did not get puffed up with pride because of the many wonderful visions you gave him. Lord, may this inform us not to get proud. We repent right now Lord of our pride! And may believers learn that it is not your will to heal every disease. Increase understanding of this, Lord, so that believers with chronic diseases are not made to feel like failures. Instead, many of them should be told that they are displaying your power. May we all learn how to be at peace with our weaknesses, that we may feel the protection of your power over us.