Day 60 – March 1, 2022

Deuteronomy 1, 2

​¹ Now these are the words Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the desert, in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. ² It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.

³ Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the sons of Israel according to all the Lord gave him as commandments to them, ⁴ after he killed Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth in Edrei. ⁵ Beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying, ⁶ “The Lord our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying, ‘You have dwelt long enough at this mountain. ⁷ Turn and take your journey and go to the mountain of the Amorites, to all the neighboring places in the Arabah, in the mountains and in the plain, to the south and on the seacoast, to the land of the Canaanites, and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates. ⁸ Behold, I am delivering the land in your presence; go in and inherit the land I swore to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give it to them and their seed after them.’

Judges Appointed

⁹ “So I spoke to you at that time, saying, ‘I alone am not able to bear you. ¹⁰ The Lord your God multiplied you, and here you are today, as the stars of heaven in multitude. ¹¹ May the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you, just as He said. ¹² How can I alone bear your labors, your burdens, and your lawsuits? ¹³ Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them leaders over you.’

¹⁴ “Then you answered me and said, ‘The thing you told us to do is good.’ ¹⁵ So I took from you wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men and made them leaders over you: leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens; judges to interpret the law for you.

¹⁶ “Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the resident alien with him. ¹⁷ You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall judge the small and the great; you shall not shrink before any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.’ ¹⁸ So I commanded you at that time all the words you should do.

Spies Sent Out

¹⁹ “So we departed from Horeb, and went through all that great and fearful desert you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorite, as the Lord our God commanded us. Then we came to Kadesh Barnea. ²⁰ Then I said to you, ‘You have come to the mountains of the Amorite, which the Lord our God is giving us. ²¹ Behold, the Lord your God is delivering the land to you in your presence; go up and take it as an inheritance, in the manner the Lord God of your fathers spoke to you; do not fear or be afraid.’ ²² Then every one of you came near me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, and let them spy out the land for us and report back to us the way we should go up in it, and the cities into which we should come.’

²³ “The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe. ²⁴ Then they departed and went up into the mountain, and came to the Valley of Eshcol, and surveyed it. ²⁵ They also took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and said, ‘The land the Lord our God gives us is good.’

  ²⁶ “Nevertheless you would not go up, but disobeyed the word of the Lord your God; ²⁷ and you murmured in your tents, and said, ‘Because the Lord hates us, He brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us. ²⁸ Where can we go up? Our brethren caused our heart to revolt, saying, “The people are great and tall and stronger than we; and the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; moreover, we saw the sons of giants there.” ’

²⁹ “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified or afraid of them. ³⁰ The Lord your God, who goes before your face, He will fight them with you in all things, as He did for you in Egypt ³¹ and in this desert, where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way you went until you came to this place.’ ³² Yet, in all this matter, you did not believe the Lord your God, ³³ who went in the way before you to choose a place for you, leading you with the fire by night and the cloud by day and showing you the road, that you might travel it.

Israel’s Rebellion Is Punished

³⁴ “So the Lord heard the sound of your words and was provoked to wrath, and took an oath, saying, ³⁵ ‘Not one of these men shall see this good land I swore to give their fathers ³⁶ except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he will see it, and to him and his sons I give the land on which he walked, because he is attached to the things of the Lord.’ ³⁷ The Lord was also angry with me for your sakes, saying, ‘Even you shall not enter there. ³⁸ Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he will enter there. Encourage him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it. ³⁹ Thus every young child who today has no knowledge of good or evil, they will enter there; to them I will give it, and they will have it as an inheritance. ⁴⁰ But as for you, turn and camp in the desert road towards the Red Sea.’

⁴¹ “Then you answered and said to me, ‘We sinned before the Lord our God; we will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’ So when every one of you girded on his weapons of war and assembled together, you went up into the mountain.

⁴² “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them, “Do not go up or fight, for I am not with you; lest you be crushed before your enemies.” ’ ⁴³ So I spoke to you; yet you would not listen, but transgressed the word of the Lord and presumptuously went up into the mountain. ⁴⁴ Then the Amorite who dwelt in that mountain came out against you, and chased you as bees do, and wounded you from Seir to Hormah. ⁴⁵ Then you sat down and wept before the Lord, but the Lord would not listen to your voice nor pay attention to you. ⁴⁶ So you encamped in Kadesh many days, according to the days you spent there.

The Years in the Desert

​¹ “So we turned and journeyed on the desert road along the Red Sea, as the Lord spoke to me, and we encircled Mount Seir for many days. ² Then the Lord spoke to me, saying, ³ ‘Let your encircling of this mountain be sufficient; therefore, turn northward. ⁴ Also command the people, saying, “You are about to pass through the boundaries of your brethren, the sons of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you and will be in exceeding dread of you. ⁵ Do not engage them in war, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as one footstep, because I gave Mount Seir to the sons of Esau as an inheritance. ⁶ You shall buy food from them with money, that you may eat; and you shall also buy water by the measure from them with money, that you may drink. ⁷ For the Lord your God blessed you in all the work of your hands. Consider how you crossed that great and fearful desert. Behold, these forty years the Lord your God was with you, and you lacked nothing.” ’

⁸ “Then we passed beyond our brethren the sons of Esau, who dwell in Seir, along the road of the Arabah from Elath and Ezion Geber; and we turned and passed along the desert road toward Moab. ⁹ Then the Lord said to me, ‘Do not be at enmity with Moab, or wage war with them, for I will not give you any of their land as an inheritance, because I gave Ar to the sons of Lot to inherit.’ ” ¹⁰ (The Emim dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and strong as the Anakim. ¹¹ They were also regarded as Raphain, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim. ¹² The Horite formerly dwelt in Seir, but the sons of Esau rooted them out and destroyed them from before their face, and dwelt in their place, in the manner Israel did in the land of their inheritance, which the Lord gave them.) ¹³ “ ‘Now rise, break camp and cross over the Valley of Zered.’ So we crossed over the Valley of Zered. ¹⁴ So the days we took to come from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over the Valley of Zered were thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war died out of the camp, as the Lord swore to them. ¹⁵ For the hand of the Lord was on them, to destroy them out of the camp until they were consumed.

  ¹⁶ “So it was, when all the men of war died from the midst of the people, ¹⁷ then the Lord spoke to me, saying, ¹⁸ ‘Today you shall pass by the borders of Moab at Seir, ¹⁹ and you shall draw near the sons of Ammon, but do not be at enmity with them or wage war with them, for I will not give you any land of the sons of Ammon as an inheritance, because I gave it to the sons of Lot as an inheritance.’ ” ²⁰ (Formerly, it was also regarded as the land of the Raphain, for the Raphain dwelt upon it. But the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, ²¹ a people great and numerous and stronger than you, just as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them before their face; and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place to this day; ²² just as they did for the sons of Esau, who dwelt in Seir, when they destroyed the Horites from before their face. They dispossessed them and dwelt in their place to this day. ²³ Also the Avim, who dwelt in villages as far as Gaza—the Cappadocians, who came from Cappadocia, destroyed them and dwelt in their place.)

²⁴ “ ‘Now therefore, rise, break camp, and travel along the Arnon Valley. Behold, I give into your hands Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Enter your inheritance and engage him in war. ²⁵ On this day, begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the face of all nations under heaven, who when they hear the report of you, they will tremble and be in anguish because of your presence.’

Israel Victorious over King Sihon

²⁶ “So I sent ambassadors from the Kedemoth Desert to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying, ²⁷ ‘Let me pass through your land; I will keep strictly to the road, and I will turn neither to the right nor to the left. ²⁸ You shall sell me food for money so I may eat, and sell me water for money so I may drink; only let me pass through on foot, ²⁹ just as the sons of Esau, who dwell in Seir, and the Moabites, who dwell in Ar, did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land the Lord our God is giving us.’ ³⁰ But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through, for the Lord our God hardened his spirit and made his heart stubborn, that He might deliver him into your hands, as on this day. ³¹ Then the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to inherit his land.’ ³² So Sihon and all his people came out to engage us in war at Jahaz. ³³ But the Lord our God delivered him over to us; so we defeated him, his sons, and all his people. ³⁴ We conquered all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed every city, one after the other, and we did not leave their women and children alive. ³⁵ We took only the cattle as plunder for ourselves, along with the spoil of the cities. ³⁶ From Aroer on the bank of the Arnon River, and from the city in the ravine, as far as the mountain of Gilead, there was not one city that escaped us; the Lord our God delivered them all into our hands. ³⁷ Only we did not go into the land of the sons of Ammon—anywhere along the Jabbok River, or to the cities of the mountains, as the Lord our God commanded us.

Psalms 52

​¹ For the End; for Mahaleth; concerning understanding; by David.

² The fool said in his heart, “There is no God.”

They are corrupt and abominable in lawlessness;

There is none who does good.

³ God looked from heaven upon the sons of men

To see if there were any who understood or sought God.

⁴ All turned aside; they were all together rendered useless;

There is none who does good, not even one.

⁵ Do all the workers of lawlessness not know?

They eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God.

⁶ They were in great fear where no fear was,

For God scattered the bones of men-pleasers;

They were put to shame, because God scorned them.

⁷ Who will bring the salvation of Israel out of Zion?

When God brings back the captivity of His people,

Jacob will greatly rejoice, and Israel will be glad.

Psalms 53

​¹ For the End; in hymns; concerning understanding; by David;

² when the Ziphites came and said to Saul, “Is not David hiding with us?”

³ Save me, O God, in Your name,

And judge me in Your power.

⁴ O God, hear my prayer;

Give ear to the words of my mouth.

⁵ For strangers rise up against me,

And the powerful seek after my soul;

They have not set God before them.

(Pause)

⁶ For behold, God is my helper;

The Lord is the protector of my soul.

⁷ He will return evils to my enemies;

Utterly destroy them in Your truth.

⁸ I will sacrifice to You voluntarily;

I will give thanks to Your name, O Lord, for it is good.

⁹ You delivered me from all my afflictions,

And my eye looked upon my enemies.

Proverbs 11:6–10

⁶ When a righteous man dies, his hope does not perish,

But the boast of the ungodly perishes.

⁷ A righteous man escapes from a snare,

But the ungodly man is handed over in his place.

⁸ There is a snare for citizens in the mouth of the ungodly,

But the perception of the righteous is prosperous.

⁹ A city stays upright in the good things of the righteous,

But it is razed to the ground by the mouths of the ungodly.

¹⁰ A man in need of discernment treats citizens with contempt,

But a man of discernment keeps quiet.

Mark 7:1–23

​¹ Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem.

² Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.

³ For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders.

⁴ When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.

⁵ Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

⁶ He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:

‘This people honors Me with their lips,

But their heart is far from Me.

⁷ And in vain they worship Me,

Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

⁸ “For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”

⁹ He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.

¹⁰ “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’

¹¹ “But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God),

¹² “then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother,

¹³ “making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

¹⁴ When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand:

¹⁵ “There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man.

¹⁶ “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”

¹⁷ When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable.

¹⁸ So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him,

¹⁹ “because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?”

²⁰ And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man.

²¹ “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

²² “thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.²³ “All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”