Study, Learn and Grow: Bible Readings for May 9, 2023

Let's read the Bible together in the next year. Today our passages are 1 Samuel 5:1–7:17; John 6:1-21; Psalm 106:13-31; and Proverbs 14:32-33. The readings are the Contemporary English Version.

1 Samuel 5-7:17 (Contemporary English Version)

1 Samuel 5

God Causes Trouble for the Philistines

1The Philistines took the sacred chest from near Ebenezer to the town of Ashdod. 2They brought it into the temple of their god Dagon and put it next to the statue of Dagon, which they worshiped.

3When the people of Ashdod got up early the next morning, they found the statue lying facedown on the floor in front of the sacred chest. They put the statue back where it belonged. 4But early the next morning, it had fallen over again and was lying facedown on the floor in front of the chest. The body of the statue was still in one piece, but its head and both hands had broken off and were lying on the stone floor in the doorway. 5This is the reason the priests and everyone else step over that part of the doorway when they enter the temple of Dagon in Ashdod.

6The LORD caused a lot of trouble for the people of Ashdod and their neighbors. He made sores break out all over their bodies, [a] and everyone was in a panic. [b] 7Finally, they said, "The God of Israel did this. He is the one who caused all this trouble for us and our god Dagon. We've got to get rid of this chest." 8The people of Ashdod had all the Philistine rulers come to Ashdod, and they asked them, "What can we do with the sacred chest that belongs to the God of Israel?"

"Send it to Gath," the rulers answered. But after they took it there, 9the LORD made sores break out on everyone in town. The people of Gath were frightened, 10so they sent the sacred chest to Ekron. But before they could take it through the town gates, the people of Ekron started screaming, "They've brought the sacred chest that belongs to the God of Israel! It will kill us and our families too!"

The Philistines Send Back the Sacred Chest

11The people of Ekron called for another meeting of the Philistine rulers and told them, "Send this chest back where it belongs. Then it won't kill us."

Everyone was in a panic, because God was causing a lot of people to die, 12and those who had survived were suffering from the sores. They all cried to their gods for help.

1 Samuel 6

1After the sacred chest had been in Philistia for seven months, [c] 2the Philistines called in their priests and fortunetellers, and asked, "What should we do with this sacred chest? Tell us how to send it back where it belongs!" 3"Don't send it back without a gift," the priests and fortunetellers answered. "Send along something to Israel's God to make up for taking the chest in the first place. Then you will be healed, and you will find out why the LORD was causing you so much trouble."

4"What should we send?" the Philistines asked.

The priests and fortunetellers answered:

There are five Philistine rulers, and they all have the same disease that you have. 5So make five gold models of the sores and five gold models of the rats that are wiping out your crops. If you honor the God of Israel with this gift, maybe he will stop causing trouble for you and your gods and your crops. 6Don't be like the Egyptians and their king. They were stubborn, but when Israel's God was finished with them, they had to let Israel go.

7Get a new cart and two cows that have young calves and that have never pulled a cart. Hitch the cows to the cart, but take the calves back to their barn. 8Then put the chest on the cart. Put the gold rats and sores into a bag and put it on the cart next to the chest. Then send it on its way.

9Watch to see if the chest goes on up the road to the Israelite town of Beth-Shemesh. If it goes back to its own country, you will know that it was the LORD who made us suffer so badly. But if the chest doesn't go back to its own country, then the LORD had nothing to do with the disease that hit us--it was simply bad luck.

10The Philistines followed their advice. They hitched up the two cows to the cart, but they kept their calves in a barn. 11Then they put the chest on the cart, along with the bag that had the gold rats and sores in it.

12The cows went straight up the road toward Beth-Shemesh, mooing as they went. The Philistine rulers followed them until they got close to Beth-Shemesh.

13The people of Beth-Shemesh were harvesting their wheat [d] in the valley. When they looked up and saw the chest, they were so happy that they stopped working and started celebrating. 14-15The cows left the road and pulled the cart into a field that belonged to Joshua from Beth-Shemesh, and they stopped beside a huge rock. Some men from the tribe of Levi were there. So they took the chest off the cart and placed it on the rock, and then they did the same thing with the bag of gold rats and sores. A few other people chopped up the cart and made a fire. They killed the cows and burned them as sacrifices to the LORD. After that, they offered more sacrifices.

16When the five rulers of the Philistines saw what had happened, they went back to Ekron that same day.

17That is how the Philistines sent gifts to the LORD to make up for taking the sacred chest. They sent five gold sores, one each for their towns of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. 18They also sent one gold rat for each walled town and for every village that the five Philistine rulers controlled. The huge stone [e] where the Levites set the chest is still there in Joshua's field as a reminder of what happened.

The Sacred Chest Is Sent to Kiriath-Jearim

19Some of the men of Beth-Shemesh looked inside the sacred chest, and the LORD God killed seventy [f] of them. This made the people of Beth-Shemesh very sad, 20and they started saying, "No other God is like the LORD! Who can go near him and still live? We'll have to send the chest away from here. But where can we send it?" 21They sent messengers to tell the people of Kiriath-Jearim, "The Philistines have sent back the sacred chest. Why don't you take it and keep it there with you?"

1 Samuel 7

1The people of Kiriath-Jearim got the chest and took it to Abinadab's house, which was on a hill in their town. They chose his son Eleazar to take care of it, 2and it stayed there for twenty years.
During this time everyone in Israel was very sad and begged the LORD for help. [g]

The People of Israel Turn Back to the LORD

3One day, Samuel told all the people of Israel, "If you really want to turn back to the LORD, then prove it. Get rid of your foreign idols, including the ones of the goddess Astarte. Turn to the LORD with all your heart and worship only him. Then he will rescue you from the Philistines."
4The people got rid of their idols of Baal and Astarte and began worshiping only the LORD.

5Then Samuel said, "Tell everyone in Israel to meet together at Mizpah, and I will pray to the LORD for you."

6The Israelites met together at Mizpah with Samuel as their leader. They drew water from the well and poured it out as an offering to the LORD. On that same day they went without eating to show their sorrow, and they confessed they had been unfaithful to the LORD.

The Philistines Attack Israel

7When the Philistine rulers found out about the meeting at Mizpah, they sent an army there to attack the people of Israel.

The Israelites were afraid when they heard that the Philistines were coming. 8"Don't stop praying!" they told Samuel. "Ask the LORD our God to rescue us."

9-10Samuel begged the LORD to rescue Israel, then he sacrificed a young lamb to the LORD. Samuel had not even finished offering the sacrifice when the Philistines started to attack. But the LORD answered his prayer and made thunder crash all around them. The Philistines panicked and ran away. 11The men of Israel left Mizpah and went after them as far as the hillside below Beth-Car, killing every enemy soldier they caught.

12-13The Philistines were so badly beaten that it was quite a while before they attacked Israel again. After the battle, Samuel set up a monument between Mizpah and the rocky cliffs. He named it "Help Monument" [h] to remind Israel how much the LORD had helped them. For as long as Samuel lived, the LORD helped Israel fight the Philistines. 14The Israelites were even able to recapture their towns and territory between Ekron and Gath.

Israel was also at peace with the Amorites. [i]

Samuel Is a Leader in Israel

15Samuel was a leader [j] in Israel all his life. 16Every year he would go around to the towns of Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah where he served as judge for the people. 17Then he would go back to his home in Ramah and do the same thing there. He also had an altar built for the LORD at Ramah.

Footnotes:
1 Samuel 5:6 sores. . . bodies: Or "He struck them with bubonic plague."
1 Samuel 5:6 panic: Two ancient translations add "Rats came from their ships, and people were dying right and left."
1 Samuel 6:1 months: One ancient translation adds "and rats were everywhere" or "and rats ate the crops."
1 Samuel 6:13 wheat: The wheat harvest took place in May and June.
1 Samuel 6:18 stone: A few Hebrew manuscripts; most Hebrew manuscripts "meadow" or "stream."
1 Samuel 6:19 seventy: A few Hebrew manuscripts; most Hebrew manuscripts "seventy men, fifty thousand men."
1 Samuel 7:2 Israel. . . help: Or "Israel turned to the LORD and begged him for help."
1 Samuel 7:12 Help Monument: Or "Ebenezer."
1 Samuel 7:14 Amorites: In this verse, the non-Israelite peoples of Canaan.
1 Samuel 7:15 leader: The Hebrew word could mean an army commander, a judge, and a religious leader.

John 6:1-21 (Contemporary English Version)

John 6

Feeding Five Thousand
(Matthew 14.13-21; Mark 6.30-44; Luke 9.10-17)

1Jesus crossed Lake Galilee, which was also known as Lake Tiberias. 2A large crowd had seen him work miracles to heal the sick, and those people went with him. 3-4It was almost time for the Jewish festival of Passover, and Jesus went up on a mountain with his disciples and sat down. [a] 5When Jesus saw the large crowd coming toward him, he asked Philip, "Where will we get enough food to feed all these people?" 6He said this to test Philip, since he already knew what he was going to do.

7Philip answered, "Don't you know that it would take almost a year's wages [b] just to buy only a little bread for each of these people?" 8Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the disciples. He spoke up and said, 9"There is a boy here who has five small loaves [c] of barley bread and two fish. But what good is that with all these people?" 10The ground was covered with grass, and Jesus told his disciples to have everyone sit down. About five thousand men were in the crowd. 11Jesus took the bread in his hands and gave thanks to God. Then he passed the bread to the people, and he did the same with the fish, until everyone had plenty to eat.

12The people ate all they wanted, and Jesus told his disciples to gather up the leftovers, so that nothing would be wasted. 13The disciples gathered them up and filled twelve large baskets with what was left over from the five barley loaves.

14After the people had seen Jesus work this miracle, [d] they began saying, "This must be the Prophet [e] who is to come into the world!" 15Jesus realized that they would try to force him to be their king. So he went up on a mountain, where he could be alone.

Jesus Walks on the Water
(Matthew 14.22-27; Mark 6.45-52)

16That evening, Jesus' disciples went down to the lake. 17They got into a boat and started across for Capernaum. Later that evening Jesus had still not come to them, 18and a strong wind was making the water rough.

19When the disciples had rowed for three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the water. He kept coming closer to the boat, and they were terrified. 20But he said, "I am Jesus! [f] Don't be afraid!" 21The disciples wanted to take him into the boat, but suddenly the boat reached the shore where they were headed.

Footnotes:
John 6:3 sat down: Possibly to teach. Teachers in the ancient world, including Jewish teachers, usually sat down to teach.
John 6:7 almost a year's wages: The Greek text has " two hundred silver coins." Each coin was worth the average day's wages for a worker.
John 6:9 small loaves: These would have been flat and round or in the shape of a bun.
John 6:14 miracle: See the note at 2.11.
John 6:14 the Prophet: See the note at 1.21.
John 6:20 I am Jesus: The Greek text has " I am" (see the note at 8.24).

Psalm 106:13-31 (Contemporary English Version)

13But they soon forgot
what you had done
and rejected your advice.

14They became greedy for food
and tested you there
in the desert.

15So you gave them
what they wanted,
but later you destroyed them
with a horrible disease.

16Everyone in camp was jealous
of Moses
and of Aaron,
your chosen priest.

17Dathan and Abiram rebelled,
and the earth opened up
and swallowed them.

18Then fire broke out
and destroyed all
of their followers.

19At Horeb your people
made and worshiped
the statue
20of a bull, instead of you,
their glorious God.

21You worked powerful miracles
to save them from Egypt,
but they forgot about you
22and the fearsome things
you did at the Red Sea. [a]

23You were angry and started
to destroy them,
but Moses, your chosen leader,
begged you not to do it.

24They would not trust
you, LORD,
and they did not like
the promised land.

25They would not obey you,
and they grumbled
in their tents.

26So you threatened them
by saying,
"I'll kill you
out here in the desert!

27I'll scatter your children
everywhere in the world."

28Your people became followers
of a god named Baal Peor,
and they ate sacrifices
offered to the dead. [b]

29They did such terrible things
that you punished them
with a deadly disease.

30But Phinehas [c]
helped them, and the sickness stopped.

31Now he will always
be highly honored.

Footnotes:
Psalm 106:22 Red Sea: Hebrew yam suph " Sea of Reeds," one of the marshes or fresh water lakes near the eastern part of the Nile Delta. This identification is based on Exodus 13.17--14.9, which lists the towns on the route of the Israelites before crossing the sea. In the Greek translation of the Scriptures made about 200 (B).(C)., the " Sea of Reeds" was named " Red Sea."
Psalm 106:28 the dead: Or " lifeless idols."
Psalm 106:30 Phinehas: The grandson of Aaron, who put two people to death and kept the Lord from being angry with the rest of his people (see Numbers 25.1-13).

Feeding on Christ Preaching the Proverbs - Feeding on Christ

Proverbs 14:32-33 (Contemporary English Version)

32In times of trouble
the wicked are destroyed,
but even at death
the innocent have faith. [a]

33Wisdom is found in the minds
of people with good sense,
but fools don't know it. [b]

Footnotes:
Proverbs 14:32 but even. . . faith: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text. Some ancient translations " but good people trust their innocence."
Proverbs 14:33 but. . . it: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text; some ancient translations " but not in the mind of a fool."

Thought for the Day

If you belong to Christ Jesus, you won’t be punished. The Holy Spirit will give you life that comes from Christ Jesus and will set you free from sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2 - Contemporary English Version) When we trust that we belong to Jesus Christ. we can be confident as we move into the future. And because we have confidence, we can have hope as we live right now.

Quote for the Day

Canadian-American country music singer and songwriter, Hank Snow wrote, "It's really sort of morbid, but she said her mother wanted to see me all her life. And when she died, she made just one request: that a picture of me be put into her casket. So somewhere in England, I'm in a casket."