Day 299 – October 26, 2022

Zechariah 6-9

⁹ And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ¹⁰ “Take the things of the captivity from the rulers, from its useful men and from those having come to understand it, and on that day you shall enter into the house of Josiah, son of Zephaniah, who has come out of Babylon; ¹¹ take silver and gold and make crowns, and set them on the head of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. ¹² And you will say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord Almighty: “Behold the man, Orient is His name, and He shall rise up from below the horizon, and He shall build the house of the Lord. ¹³ And He shall receive power and shall sit and rule upon His throne, and a priest shall be by His right hand, and there will be peaceful counsel between both of them.’ ” ¹⁴ And the crown shall be to those who endure patiently, to His useful men, and to those coming to understand it, and for the favor of the son of Zephaniah, and for a psalm in the house of the Lord. ¹⁵ And those far away from them will come and will build in the house of the Lord. You shall know the Lord Almighty sent Me to you, and this will come to pass if you will listen diligently to the voice of the Lord your God.”
True Fasting
​¹ And it came to pass, in the fourth year of Darius the king, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev, ² when Sharezer and Regem-Melech and his men went to Bethel to propitiate the Lord, ³ speaking to the priests in the house of the Lord Almighty and to the prophets, saying, “The holy offering has come in here in the fifth month—just as I have done for a considerable number of years.” ⁴ And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, ⁵ “Speak to all the people of the land and to the priests, saying, ‘Though you fasted or mourned in the fifth or seventh months, lo these seventy years, did you at all fast for Me? ⁶ And if you do eat or drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? ⁷ Are these not the words the Lord spoke by the hand of the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and thriving, and the cities around her, and the hill country and the plains were inhabited?’ ”
⁸ And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, ⁹ “Thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘Render a just judgment; show mercy and compassion each to his brother. ¹⁰ Do not oppress the widow, or the orphan, or the foreigner, or the poor. And let not one remember in his heart any wrong of his brother.’
¹¹ “But they refused to pay attention, and without reason turned their backs and stopped their ears so they should not hear. ¹² And they made their hearts disobedient so as not to heed My Law, nor to hear the words the Lord Almighty sent by His Spirit by the hand of the former prophets. And there came great wrath from the Lord Almighty. ¹³ And it shall come to pass as He said, for they did not listen. So they will cry out, but by no means will I listen to their prayers,” says the Lord Almighty. ¹⁴ “And I shall cast them out among all the nations which they did not know, and behind them the land shall become utterly worthless from traveling through or for coming back, for they made the chosen land a desolation.”
The Future Restoration of Israel
​¹ And the word of the Lord Almighty came, saying, ² “Thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘I have been zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion, zealous for her with great zeal and fervor.’ ³ Thus says the Lord: ‘I will return to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called a True City, and the Mountain of the Lord Almighty the Holy Mountain.’
⁴ “Thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘Elderly men and elderly women shall yet sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each one holding his cane in his hand for the multitude of their days. ⁵ And the streets will be filled with boys and girls dancing in her streets.’ ⁶ Thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘If it is impossible in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be impossible in My sight?’ says the Lord Almighty. ⁷ Thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘Behold, I shall deliver My people from the land of the east and from the land of the west. ⁸ I shall bring them in and settle them in the midst of Jerusalem. They shall be to Me a people and I will be to them a God in truth and in righteousness.’
  ⁹ “Thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘Let your hands be strong, you who hear in these days these words from the mouth of the prophets, from the day that the house of the Lord Almighty was founded, and from the time the temple was built. ¹⁰ For before those days, men’s wages will not be profitable and a price for livestock will not even exist, and because of affliction there will be no peace for those going out and those coming in, and I will send forth all men, each against his neighbor. ¹¹ But now I do not do to the remnant of this people as in the former days,’ says the Lord Almighty. ¹² ‘Rather I will show forth peace, for the vine shall give its fruit, the earth her produce, the heaven its dew, and I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people. ¹³ And it shall come to pass that as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you will be for a blessing; be of good courage and strengthen your hands.’
¹⁴ “For thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘As I purposed to afflict you when your fathers provoked Me to anger,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and I did not relent, ¹⁵ so now in these days I have prepared and purposed to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; be of good courage. ¹⁶ These are the things you shall do: speak the truth, each man to his neighbor, and judge with peaceful judgment in your gates, ¹⁷ and let none of you plan evil in his heart against his neighbor, and do not love a false oath, for all these things I hate,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
¹⁸ And the word of the Lord Almighty came to me, saying, ¹⁹ “Thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘The fourth-month fast, and the fifth-month fast, and the seventh-month fast, and the tenth-month fast shall be for joy and gladness and in good feasts to the house of Judah. And you will rejoice, and you will love truth and peace.’ ²⁰ Thus says the Lord Almighty: ‘Yet many people will have come and those inhabiting many cities; ²¹ and the inhabitants of five cities will come together to one city, saying, “Let us go to beseech the Lord and to seek out the face of the Lord Almighty; and I will go also.” ²² And many peoples and many nations will come to seek out the presence of the Lord Almighty in Jerusalem and to obtain the favor of the presence of the Lord.’ ²³ Thus says the Lord Almighty, ‘In those days, if ten men from all the tongues of the nations stop you, even if they grab hold of the hem of a Jewish man, they will be saying, “We will go with you, for we heard God is with you.” ’ ”
Judgment of Israel’s Enemies
​¹ The burden of the word of the Lord against the land of Hadrach, and of Damascus his sacrifice, for the Lord looks upon men and on all the tribes of Israel. ² And on Hamath in her borders, Tyre and Sidon, because they are very wise. ³ For Tyre built a fortress for herself and stored up silver like dust and collected gold like mud in the streets. ⁴ Therefore, the Lord shall possess her as an inheritance, and shall strike against her power in the sea, and she shall be consumed by fire. ⁵ Ashkelon shall see it and fear; and Gaza, even she shall suffer greatly, and Ekron will be ashamed because of her transgression. The king will perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall no longer be inhabited.
⁶ “And foreigners shall settle in Ashdod, and I will bring down the pride of the Philistines. ⁷ I will remove their blood from their mouth and their abominations from between their teeth, and this also will be left to our God. And they shall be as a captain of a thousand in Judah, and Ekron as a Jebusite. ⁸ And I will raise up a fortress around My house that none may pass through nor return back, and no longer shall anyone come against them to drive them out, for I have now seen with My own eyes.
  The Coming King
⁹ “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Proclaim it aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you; He is righteous and saving; He is gentle and mounted upon a donkey, even a young foal. ¹⁰ He will utterly destroy the chariots out of Ephraim and the horse out of Jerusalem. The bow of war shall be utterly destroyed, and there shall be abundance and peace among the nations. He shall rule over the waters as far as the sea and over the rivers to the ends of the earth.
¹¹ “And by the blood of your covenant, you freed your prisoners from the pit having no water. ¹² You prisoners from the congregation, you shall live in the fortress, and for one day of your exile, I will repay to you double. ¹³ For I have bent you, O Judah, for Myself as a bow; I have filled Ephraim. And I will arouse your sons, O Zion, against the sons of the Greeks, and I will handle you as the sword of a warrior.” ¹⁴ And the Lord will be over them, and He shall go forth like a lightning bolt. The Lord Almighty shall sound with the trumpet and shall go forth with the tumult of His threat. ¹⁵ The Lord Almighty will shield them, and they shall devour their enemy and overwhelm them with sling-stones. They will drink them down as wine, and they shall fill the bowls as at the altar. ¹⁶ And on that day, the Lord their God will deliver them, His people, as a flock, for sacred stones will roll across His land. ¹⁷ For if anything of His be good, and anything of His be fair, there shall be grain for the young men and the fragrant wine for the virgins.

Psalms 97, 98

​¹ A psalm by David.
Sing a new song to the Lord,
For He did wondrous things;
His right hand and His holy arm
Saved peoples for Him.
² The Lord made known His salvation;
He revealed His righteousness in the sight of the Gentiles.
³ He remembered His mercy to Jacob
And His truth to the house of Israel;
All the ends of the earth saw the salvation of our God.
⁴ Shout aloud to God, all the earth;
Sing and greatly rejoice, and sing psalms;
⁵ Sing to the Lord on a lyre,
On a lyre and with the voice of a psalm;
⁶ With trumpets of metal and the sound of a trumpet of horn,
Shout aloud before the Lord our King.
⁷ Let the sea be shaken and its fullness,
The world and those who dwell in it.
⁸ The rivers shall clap their hands together;
The mountains shall greatly rejoice;
⁹ For He comes to judge the earth;
He shall judge the world in righteousness
And the peoples with uprightness.
​¹ A psalm by David.
The Lord reigns; let the peoples be angry;
The Lord sits upon the cherubim; let the earth be shaken.
² The Lord is great in Zion,
And He is exalted above all the peoples;
³ Let them give thanks to Your great name,
For it is fearful and holy.
⁴ The King’s honor loves judgment;
You prepare uprightness;
You work judgment and righteousness in Jacob.
⁵ Exalt the Lord our God,
And worship at the footstool of His feet;
For He is holy.
⁶ Moses and Aaron are among His priests,
And Samuel is among those who call upon His name;
They called upon the Lord, and He heard them;
  ⁷ He spoke to them in a pillar of cloud;
They kept His testimonies
And the ordinances He gave them.
⁸ O Lord our God, You listened to them;
O God, You were very merciful to them,
While avenging all their ways of living.
⁹ Exalt the Lord our God
And worship at His holy mountain;
For the Lord our God is holy.

Proverbs 21:6–10

⁶ Destruction shall entertain the ungodly,
For they are not willing to do righteous things.
⁷ To the crooked, God sends crooked ways,
For His works are pure and upright.
⁸ It is better to dwell in a corner in the open air
Than with wrongdoing in plastered rooms and in a shared house.
⁹ The soul of the ungodly will not be shown mercy by anyone among men.
¹⁰ When the intemperate man is punished, the simple man becomes more astute,
And a wise man of understanding shall receive knowledge.
1 Timothy 5

​¹ Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers,
² older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity.
Honor True Widows
³ Honor widows who are really widows.
⁴ But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents; for this is good and acceptable before God.
⁵ Now she who is really a widow, and left alone, trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.
  ⁶ But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.
⁷ And these things command, that they may be blameless.
⁸ But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
⁹ Do not let a widow under sixty years old be taken into the number, and not unless she has been the wife of one man,
¹⁰ well reported for good works: if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work.
¹¹ But refuse the younger widows; for when they have begun to grow wanton against Christ, they desire to marry,
¹² having condemnation because they have cast off their first faith.
¹³ And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.
¹⁴ Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
¹⁵ For some have already turned aside after Satan.
¹⁶ If any believing man or woman has widows, let them relieve them, and do not let the church be burdened, that it may relieve those who are really widows.
Honor the Elders
¹⁷ Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine.
¹⁸ For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”
¹⁹ Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses.
²⁰ Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear.
²¹ I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels that you observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing with partiality.
²² Do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in other people’s sins; keep yourself pure.
²³ No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent infirmities.
²⁴ Some men’s sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later.
²⁵ Likewise, the good works of some are clearly evident, and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden.