7-Day Devotional: Torn Between Two Worlds – Embracing God’s Gifts Amid Unmet Longings

Priorities of the Kingdom

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Fuel the Fire Pt 2

5 Prayers to Stop Thinking Negatively About Your Spouse

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The Listener’s Bible®: NIV Edition

New International Version™  (Anglicised), Audio Edition

Holy Bible, New International Version™ (Anglicised), South Asian Audio Edition

<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
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 <div class="chapter ch17" data-usfm="DEU.17">
 <div class="label">17</div><div class="p"> 1Do not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep that has any defect or flaw in it, for that would be detestable to him.</div><div class="p"> 2If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, 3and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, 4and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, 5take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. 6On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. 7The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.</div><div class="s1">Law Courts</div><div class="p"> 8If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge&#8212;whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults&#8212;take them to the place the Lord your God will choose. 9Go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict. 10You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the Lord will choose. Be careful to do everything they instruct you to do. 11Act according to whatever they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left. 12Anyone who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the Lord your God is to be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel. 13All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.</div><div class="s1">The King</div><div class="p"> 14When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, &#8220;Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,&#8221; 15be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. 16The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, &#8220;You are not to go back that way again.&#8221; 17He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.</div><div class="p"> 18When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.</div>
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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
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 <div class="chapter ch18" data-usfm="DEU.18">
 <div class="label">18</div><div class="s1">Offerings for Priests and Levites</div><div class="p"> 1The Levitical priests&#8212;indeed, the whole tribe of Levi&#8212;are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the food offerings presented to the Lord, for that is their inheritance. 2They shall have no inheritance among their fellow Israelites; the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them.</div><div class="p"> 3This is the share due the priests from the people who sacrifice a bull or a sheep: the shoulder, the internal organs and the meat from the head. 4You are to give them the firstfruits of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your sheep, 5for the Lord your God has chosen them and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the Lord&#8217;s name always.</div><div class="p"> 6If a Levite moves from one of your towns anywhere in Israel where he is living, and comes in all earnestness to the place the Lord will choose, 7he may minister in the name of the Lord his God like all his fellow Levites who serve there in the presence of the Lord. 8He is to share equally in their benefits, even though he has received money from the sale of family possessions.</div><div class="s1">Occult Practices</div><div class="p"> 9When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. 13You must be blameless before the Lord your God.</div><div class="s1">The Prophet</div><div class="p"> 14The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. 15The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, &#8220;Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 17The Lord said to me: &#8220;What they say is good. 18I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 21You may say to yourselves, &#8220;How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?&#8221; 22If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.</div>
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<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
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 <div class="chapter ch19" data-usfm="DEU.19">
 <div class="label">19</div><div class="s1">Cities of Refuge</div><div class="p"> 1When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations whose land he is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their towns and houses, 2then set aside for yourselves three cities in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess. 3Determine the distances involved and divide into three parts the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that a person who kills someone may flee for refuge to one of these cities.</div><div class="p"> 4This is the rule concerning anyone who kills a person and flees there for safety&#8212;anyone who kills a neighbor unintentionally, without malice aforethought. 5For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and as he swings his ax to fell a tree, the head may fly off and hit his neighbor and kill him. That man may flee to one of these cities and save his life. 6Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue him in a rage, overtake him if the distance is too great, and kill him even though he is not deserving of death, since he did it to his neighbor without malice aforethought. 7This is why I command you to set aside for yourselves three cities.</div><div class="p"> 8If the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he promised on oath to your ancestors, and gives you the whole land he promised them, 9because you carefully follow all these laws I command you today&#8212;to love the Lord your God and to walk always in obedience to him&#8212;then you are to set aside three more cities. 10Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.</div><div class="p"> 11But if out of hate someone lies in wait, assaults and kills a neighbor, and then flees to one of these cities, 12the killer shall be sent for by the town elders, be brought back from the city, and be handed over to the avenger of blood to die. 13Show no pity. You must purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, so that it may go well with you.</div><div class="p"> 14Do not move your neighbor&#8217;s boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess.</div><div class="s1">Witnesses</div><div class="p"> 15One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.</div><div class="p"> 16If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, 17the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, 19then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you. 20The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. 21Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.</div>
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New International Version

<div class="version vid111 iso6393eng" data-vid="111" data-iso6393="eng">
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 <div class="chapter ch14" data-usfm="MRK.14.1+MRK.14.2+MRK.14.3+MRK.14.4+MRK.14.5+MRK.14.6+MRK.14.7+MRK.14.8+MRK.14.9+MRK.14.10+MRK.14.11+MRK.14.12+MRK.14.13+MRK.14.14+MRK.14.15+MRK.14.16+MRK.14.17+MRK.14.18+MRK.14.19+MRK.14.20+MRK.14.21+MRK.14.22+MRK.14.23+MRK.14.24+MRK.14.25">
 <div class="p">1Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. 2&#8220;But not during the festival,&#8221; they said, &#8220;or the people may riot.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 3While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.</div><div class="p"> 4Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, &#8220;Why this waste of perfume? 5It could have been sold for more than a year&#8217;s wages#14:5 Greek than three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor.&#8221; And they rebuked her harshly.</div><div class="p"> 6 &#8220;Leave her alone,&#8221; said Jesus. &#8220;Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7The poor you will always have with you,#14:7 See Deut. 15:11. and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 10Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. 11They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.</div><div class="s1">The Last Supper</div><div class="p"> 12On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus&#8217; disciples asked him, &#8220;Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 13So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, &#8220;Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14Say to the owner of the house he enters, &#8216;The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?&#8217; 15He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 16The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.</div><div class="p"> 17When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, &#8220;Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me&#8212;one who is eating with me.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 19They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, &#8220;Surely you don&#8217;t mean me?&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 20 &#8220;It is one of the Twelve,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 22While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, &#8220;Take it; this is my body.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> 23Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.</div><div class="p"> 24 &#8220;This is my blood of the # 14:24 Some manuscripts the new covenant, which is poured out for many,&#8221; he said to them. 25&#8220;Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.&#8221;</div><div class="p"> </div>
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