Day 67 – March 8, 2022

Deuteronomy 20-22

1 “Now if you go out to war against your enemies and see horse and rider and a people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God is with you who brought you up from the land of Egypt. 2 So it shall be, when you are on the verge of battle, the priest shall approach and speak to the people, 3 and he shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are going out to war against your enemies. Do not let your heart faint, do not be afraid, and do not tremble or be terrified because of their face; 4 for the Lord your God is He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’ 5 Then the scribes shall speak to the people, saying, ‘What man is there who built a new house, but has not consecrated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war, and a different man consecrate it. 6 Also what man is there who planted a vineyard, but has not enjoyed it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war, and a different man enjoy it. 7 Then too, what man is there who is betrothed to a woman, but has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war, and a different man marry her.’ 8 Now the scribes shall speak further to the people and say, ‘What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart.’ 9 So it shall be, when the scribes finish speaking to the people, they shall establish rulers of the army to lead the people.
10 “If you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it. 11 If indeed they accept your offer of peace and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you and obey you. 12 But if the city will not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13 Then the Lord your God will deliver it into your hands, and you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. 14 Besides the women, the household, all the cattle, and whatever is in the city, and all its spoil, you shall capture for yourself; and you shall eat all your enemies’ booty, which the Lord your God gives you. 15 Thus you shall do to all the cities very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations. 16 But indeed, of the cities of these nations which the Lord your God gives you to inherit their land, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive; 17 but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, in the manner the Lord your God commanded you; 18 lest they teach you to do all the abominations they did for their gods; and you sin against the Lord your God.
19 “Now if you besiege a city for many days to make war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; but if you can eat from it, do not cut it down. Should a man use this tree in the field to go before you as a battering ram? 20 But the tree you know is not a tree for food, this you may destroy and cut down to build a bulwark against the city that makes war with you, until it is delivered over.
Unsolved Murders
1 “If anyone is found slain in the land the Lord your God gives you to inherit, and is fallen in the open field, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man to the surrounding cities. 3 Then it shall be the elder of the city nearest to the slain man will take a heifer from the oxen which has not been worked and pulled with a yoke. 4 The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a rocky valley, neither plowed nor sown, and they shall hamstring the heifer there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the Levites, shall come near, for the Lord your God chose them to be present for Him and to bless in His name; by their word every controversy and every assault shall be settled. 6 After this, all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer which was hamstrung in the valley. 7 Then they shall answer and say, ‘Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it. 8 Be merciful, O Lord, to Your people Israel, whom You redeemed from the land of Egypt, so there may be no bloodguiltiness among Your people Israel.’ Thus the blood shall atone for them. 9 And you shall put away the guilt of their innocent blood from among you, if you do what is good and pleasing before the Lord your God.
Women Captives
10 “Now if you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands, and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your wife, 12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and you shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13 You shall take the clothes of her captivity from her; and she shall remain in your house and mourn her father and mother a full month; after that you may go in to her and dwell with her, and she shall be your wife. 14 But it shall be, if you do not want her, then you shall send her away free, but you certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not treat her brutally, because you humbled her.
Firstborn Rights of Inheritance
15 “Now if a man is married to two wives, one loved and the other hated, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the hated, and the firstborn son is of her who is hated, 16 then it shall be, on the day he bequeaths his possessions to his sons, he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife in preference to the son of the unloved, the true firstborn. 17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double portion of all he has, for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
A Rebellious Son
18 “Now if a man should have a disobedient and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they chastened him, will not heed them, 19 then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 So they shall say to the men of his city, ‘This son of ours is disobedient and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones, and he shall die; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and the rest shall hear and be afraid.
22 “Now if a man committed a crime under the sentence of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day; for he who is hanged on a tree is accursed of God; that you do not defile the land the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.
1 “When you see your brother’s young bull or his sheep wandering on the road, you should not ignore them; you shall certainly return them to your brother and restore them to him. 2 But if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring them to your own house, and they shall remain with you until your brother seeks them; then you shall restore them to him. 3 You shall do the same with his donkey, or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother’s which he lost and you found; you should not ignore them. 4 You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his young bull fall down on the road, and ignore them; you shall surely help him lift them up again.
5 “A woman shall not wear a man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God.
6 “If a bird’s nest happens to be before you along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, with the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young; 7 you shall surely let the mother go and take the young for yourself, that it may be well with you and you prolong your days.
8 “If you should build a new house, then you shall make a railing for your house, that you may not be guilty of manslaughter in your own house, if anyone happen to fall from it.
9 “You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield and the seed you sow and the fruit of your vineyard become unholy. 10 You shall not plow with a young bull and a donkey together. 11 You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, such as wool and linen mixed together.
12 “You shall make tassels on the corners of the clothing with which you cover yourself.
Maintaining Sexual Purity
13 “If any man takes a wife and dwells with her, and hates her, 14 and lays reproachful words upon her, and brings a bad name on her, and says, ‘I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found she was not a virgin,’ 15 then the father and mother of the young woman shall take and bring out the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders at the gate. 16 So the young woman’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man as wife, and he hates her. 17 Now he is laying reproachful words upon her, saying, “I found your daughter was not a virgin,” and yet these are the evidences of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. 18 Then the elders of that city shall take that man and discipline him; 19 and they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he brought a bad name on a virgin of Israel; and she shall be his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. 20 But if his word is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, 21 then they shall bring out the young woman to the doors of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, and she shall die, because she did a foolish thing among the children of Israel, to commit fornication in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.
22 “If a man is found lying with a married woman, then you shall kill both of them—the man that lay with the woman and the woman; so you shall put away the evil from Israel.
23 “If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he humbled his neighbor’s wife; so you shall put away the evil from among you. 25 But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then you shall kill only the man who lay with her. 26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death; for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, even so is this matter. 27 For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to come to her aid.
28 “If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found out, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father fifty silver two-drachma coins, and she shall be his wife, because he humbled her; he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days.

Psalm 59

1 For the End; for things yet to be changed; for a pillar inscription; by David; for teaching,
2 when he burned Mesopotamia of Syria, and Syrian Soba, and Joab returned and struck twelve thousand in the Valley of Salt.
3 O God, You drove us off and destroyed us;
You were angry, and had mercy on us.
4 You made the earth quake, and You troubled it;
Repair its ruins, for it was shaken.
5 You showed Your people difficult things;
You made us drink the wine of bewilderment.
6 You gave a sign to those who fear You,
So they may flee from the face of the bow.
(Pause)
7 That Your beloved may be rescued,
Save with Your right hand, and hear me.
8 God spoke in His holy place:
I will greatly rejoice, and divide Shechem,
And I will measure out the valley of the tabernacles.
9 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine,
And Ephraim is the strength of my head;
Judah is my king.
10 Moab is the cauldron of my hope;
Over Edom I will extend my shoe;
Foreign tribes were subjected to me.
11 Who will bring me into a fortified city?
Who will lead me as far as Edom?
12 Will not You, O God, who drove us away?
And will not You, O God, go out with our armies?
13 Give us help from affliction,
For the salvation of man is useless.
14 But in God we shall work power,
And He will utterly scorn those who afflict us.

Proverbs 12:11–15

11 He who works his own land will be satisfied with bread,
But those who pursue vain things are in need of discernment.
12 He who is gladdened by wines in passing his time
Shall leave dishonor in his own strongholds.
13 The desires of the ungodly are evil,
But the roots of the godly are in strongholds.
14 By the sin of his lips a sinner falls into snares,
But a righteous man escapes from them.
15 He whose looks are gentle will show mercy,
But he who contends in the gates will afflict souls.

Mark 10:32–52

32 Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed. And as they followed they were afraid. Then He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to Him:
33 “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles;
34 “and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.”
Greatness Is Serving
35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him, saying, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.”
36 And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?”
37 They said to Him, “Grant us that we may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left, in Your glory.”
38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”
39 They said to Him, “We are able.” So Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink the cup that I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized;
40 “but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared.”
41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be greatly displeased with James and John.
42 But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them.
43 “Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.
44 “And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.
45 “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Jesus Heals Blind Bartimaeus
46 Now they came to Jericho. As He went out of Jericho with His disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging.
47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
48 Then many warned him to be quiet; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
49 So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. Then they called the blind man, saying to him, “Be of good cheer. Rise, He is calling you.”
50 And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus.
51 So Jesus answered and said to him, “What do you want Me to do for you?” The blind man said to Him, “Rabboni, that I may receive my sight.”
52 Then Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.