Bible Readings for July 2, 2021

Let's read the Bible together in the next year. Today our passages are 2 Kings 20:1–22:2; Acts 21:17-36; Psalm 150:1-6; and Proverbs 18:9-10. The readings are the Contemporary English Version.  

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2 Kings 20-22:2 (Contemporary English Version)

2 Kings 20

Hezekiah Gets Sick and Almost Dies

(2 Chronicles 32.24-26; Isaiah 38.1-8,21,22)

 ¹About this time, Hezekiah got sick and was almost dead. Isaiah the prophet went in and told him, "The LORD says you won't ever get well. You are going to die, so you had better start doing what needs to be done."     ²Hezekiah turned toward the wall and prayed, ³"Don't forget that I have been faithful to you, LORD. I have obeyed you with all my heart, and I do whatever you say is right." After this, he cried hard.
    ⁴Before Isaiah got to the middle court of the palace, ⁵the LORD sent him back to Hezekiah with this message:
   Hezekiah, you are the ruler of my people, and I am the LORD God, who was worshiped by your ancestor David. I heard you pray, and I saw you cry. I will heal you, so that three days from now you will be able to worship in my temple.⁶I will let you live fifteen years more, while I protect you and your city from the king of Assyria. I will defend this city as an honor to me and to my servant David.
    ⁷Then Isaiah said to the king's servants, "Bring some mashed figs and place them on the king's open sore. He will then get well."
    ⁸Hezekiah asked Isaiah, "Can you prove that the LORD will heal me, so that I can worship in his temple in three days?"
    ⁹Isaiah replied, "The LORD will prove to you that he will keep his promise. Will the shadow made by the setting sun on the stairway go forward ten steps or back ten steps?" ^[a] ¹⁰"It's normal for the sun to go forward," Hezekiah answered. "But how can it go back?"
    ¹¹Isaiah prayed, and the LORD made the shadow go back ten steps on the stairway built for King Ahaz. ^[b] 

The LORD Is Still with Hezekiah

(Isaiah 39.1-8)

 ¹²Merodach ^[c] Baladan, the son of Baladan, was now king of Babylonia. ^[d] And when he learned that Hezekiah had been sick, he sent messengers with letters and a gift for him. ¹³Hezekiah welcomed ^[e] the messengers and showed them all the silver, the gold, the spices, and the fine oils that were in his storehouse. He even showed them where he kept his weapons. Nothing in his palace or in his entire kingdom was kept hidden from them. ¹⁴Isaiah asked Hezekiah, "Where did these men come from? What did they want?"    "They came all the way from Babylonia," Hezekiah answered.
    ¹⁵"What did you show them?" Isaiah asked.
   Hezekiah answered, "I showed them everything in my kingdom."
    ¹⁶Then Isaiah told Hezekiah:
   I have a message for you from the LORD. ¹⁷One day everything you and your ancestors have stored up will be taken to Babylonia. The LORD has promised that nothing will be left. ¹⁸Some of your own sons will be taken to Babylonia, where they will be disgraced and made to serve in the king's palace.
    ¹⁹Hezekiah thought, "At least our nation will be at peace for a while." So he told Isaiah, "The message you brought me from the LORD is good."     

Hezekiah Dies

(2 Chronicles 32.32,33)

 ²⁰Everything else Hezekiah did while he was king, including how he made the upper pool and tunnel to bring water into Jerusalem, is written in The History of the Kings of Judah. ²¹Hezekiah died, and his son Manasseh became king.     

2 Kings 21

King Manasseh of Judah

(2 Chronicles 33.1-20)

 ¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled fifty-five years from Jerusalem. His mother was Hephzibah. ²Manasseh disobeyed the LORD by following the disgusting customs of the nations that the LORD had forced out of Israel. ³He rebuilt the local shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down. He built altars for the god Baal and set up a sacred pole for worshiping the goddess Asherah, just as King Ahab of Israel had done. And he faithfully worshiped the stars in heaven.     ⁴In the temple, where only the LORD was supposed to be worshiped, Manasseh built altars for pagan gods ⁵and for the stars. He placed these altars in both courts of the temple, ^6-7and even set up the pole for Asherah there. Manasseh practiced magic and witchcraft; he asked fortunetellers for advice and sacrificed his own son. He did many sinful things and made the LORD very angry.
   Years ago the LORD had told David and his son Solomon:
   Jerusalem is the place I prefer above all others in Israel. It belongs to me, and there I will be worshiped forever. ⁸If my people will faithfully obey all the commands in the Law of my servant Moses, I will never make them leave the land I gave to their ancestors.
    ⁹But the people of Judah disobeyed the LORD. They listened to Manasseh and did even more sinful things than the nations the LORD had wiped out.
    ¹⁰One day the LORD said to some of his prophets:
    ¹¹King Manasseh has done more disgusting things than the Amorites, ^[f] and he has led my people to sin by forcing them to worship his idols. ¹²Now I, the LORD God of Israel, will destroy both Jerusalem and Judah! People will hear about it but won't believe it. ¹³Jerusalem is as sinful as Ahab and the people of Samaria were. So I will wipe out Jerusalem and be done with it, just as someone wipes water off a plate and turns it over to dry. ¹⁴I will even get rid of my people who survive. They will be defeated and robbed by their enemies. ¹⁵My people have done what I hate and have not stopped making me angry since their ancestors left Egypt.
    ¹⁶Manasseh was guilty of causing the people of Judah to sin and disobey the LORD. He also refused to protect innocent people--he even let so many of them be killed ^[g] that their blood filled the streets of Jerusalem. ¹⁷Everything else Manasseh did while he was king, including his terrible sins, is written in The History of the Kings of Judah. ¹⁸He died and was buried in Uzza Garden near his palace, and his son Amon became king.     

King Amon of Judah

(2 Chronicles 33.21-25)

 ¹⁹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled from Jerusalem for two years. His mother Meshullemeth was the daughter of Haruz from Jotbah. ²⁰Amon disobeyed the LORD, just as his father Manasseh had done. ²¹Amon worshiped the idols Manasseh had made and ²²refused to be faithful to the LORD, the God his ancestors had worshiped.     ²³Some of Amon's officials plotted against him and killed him in his palace. ^24-26He was buried in Uzza Garden. Soon after that, the people of Judah killed the murderers of Amon, then they made his son Josiah king.
   Everything else Amon did while he was king is written in The History of the Kings of Judah.
    

2 Kings 22

King Josiah of Judah

(2 Chronicles 34.1,2)

 ¹Josiah was eight years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled thirty-one years from Jerusalem. His mother Jedidah was the daughter of Adaiah from Bozkath. ²Josiah always obeyed the LORD, just as his ancestor David had done.     

Footnotes:

1. 2 Kings 20:9 Will. . . steps: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
2. 2 Kings 20:11 the shadow. . . Ahaz: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
3. 2 Kings 20:12 Merodach: The Hebrew text has "Berodach," another spelling of the name.
4. 2 Kings 20:12 Merodach Baladan. . . Babylonia: Ruled Babylonia 722-710 and 704-703 B.C.
5. 2 Kings 20:13 welcomed: Or "listened to."
6. 2 Kings 21:11 Amorites: Here used in the general sense of nations that lived in Canaan before the Israelites.
7. 2 Kings 21:16 He also refused. . . killed: Or "He killed so many innocent people."

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Acts 21:17-36 (Contemporary English Version)

Paul Visits James

 ¹⁷When we arrived in Jerusalem, the Lord's followers gladly welcomed us. ¹⁸Paul went with us to see James ^[a] the next day, and all the church leaders were present. ¹⁹Paul greeted them and told how God had used him to help the Gentiles. ²⁰Everyone who heard this praised God and said to Paul: My friend, you can see how many tens of thousands of the Jewish people have become followers! And all of them are eager to obey the Law of Moses. ²¹But they have been told that you are teaching those who live among the Gentiles to disobey this Law. They claim that you are telling them not to circumcise their sons or to follow Jewish customs.     ²²What should we do now that our people have heard that you are here? ²³Please do what we ask, because four of our men have made special promises to God. ²⁴Join with them and prepare yourself for the ceremony that goes with the promises. Pay the cost for their heads to be shaved. Then everyone will learn that the reports about you are not true. They will know that you do obey the Law of Moses.
    ²⁵Some while ago we told the Gentile followers what we think they should do. We instructed them not to eat anything offered to idols. They were told not to eat any meat with blood still in it or the meat of an animal that has been strangled. They were also told not to commit any terrible sexual sins. ^[b] ²⁶The next day Paul took the four men with him and got himself ready at the same time they did. Then he went into the temple and told when the final ceremony would take place and when an offering would be made for each of them.     

Paul Is Arrested

 ²⁷When the period of seven days for the ceremony was almost over, some of the Jewish people from Asia saw Paul in the temple. They got a large crowd together and started attacking him. ²⁸They were shouting, "Friends, help us! This man goes around everywhere, saying bad things about our nation and about the Law of Moses and about this temple. He has even brought shame to this holy temple by bringing in Gentiles." ²⁹Some of them thought that Paul had brought Trophimus from Ephesus into the temple, because they had seen them together in the city.     ³⁰The whole city was in an uproar, and the people turned into a mob. They grabbed Paul and dragged him out of the temple. Then suddenly the doors were shut. ³¹The people were about to kill Paul when the Roman army commander heard that all Jerusalem was starting to riot. ³²So he quickly took some soldiers and officers and ran to where the crowd had gathered.
   As soon as the mob saw the commander and soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. ³³The army commander went over and arrested him and had him bound with two chains. Then he tried to find out who Paul was and what he had done. ³⁴Part of the crowd shouted one thing, and part of them shouted something else. But they were making so much noise that the commander could not find out a thing. Then he ordered Paul to be taken into the fortress. ³⁵As they reached the steps, the crowd became so wild that the soldiers had to lift Paul up and carry him. ³⁶The crowd followed and kept shouting, "Kill him! Kill him!"
    

Footnotes:

1. Acts 21:18 James: The Lord's brother.
2. Acts 21:25 not to commit any terrible sexual sins: See the note at 15.20.

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Psalm 150:1-6 (Contemporary English Version)

Psalm 150

The LORD Is Good to His People

 ¹Shout praises to the LORD!    Praise God in his temple.
   Praise him in heaven,
   his mighty fortress.
    ²Praise our God!
   His deeds are wonderful,
   too marvelous to describe.
    ³Praise God with trumpets
   and all kinds of harps.
    ⁴Praise him with tambourines
   and dancing,
   with stringed instruments
   and woodwinds.
    ⁵Praise God with cymbals,
   with clashing cymbals.
    ⁶Let every living creature
   praise the LORD.
   Shout praises to the LORD! 

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Proverbs 18:9-10 (Contemporary English Version)

⁹Being lazy is no different
   from being a troublemaker.
    ¹⁰The LORD is a mighty tower
   where his people can run
   for safety--

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Thought for the Day

 

“You people of Judah are so deceitful that you even fool yourselves, and you can't change. But I know your deeds and your thoughts, and I will make sure you get what you deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10 - Contemporary English Version) We're good at self-deception, but we can't deceive God. And even though our destinies are in his loving hands, I believe, somewhere down the line, we'll get what we deserve.

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Quote for the Day

German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter, Hermann Hesse wrote, “People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.”

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A Joke for Today

People say that money is not the key to happiness...

But I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.

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A Prayer Request

As Christians, we can offer specific daily prayers for our community, nation and world. Below is the need that we're laying before God today.

That those in the entertainment industry recognize any negative influences within their media creations.