Day 353 – December 19, 2022

Ezekiel 38:1-40:23

​¹ Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, set your face against Gog and the land of Magog, the ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, ³ and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord and Master: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. ⁴ I shall gather you and all your army—horses and horsemen, all armed with breastplates, and a large assembly with shields, helmets, and swords— ⁵ along with Persians, Ethiopians, and Libyans with shields and helmets, ⁶ and also Gomer and all belonging to him, and the house of Togarmah from the far north and all belonging to him, and many nations with you.
⁷ “Be prepared; prepare yourself and all your gathering assembled with you; and you will be as an advance guard for Me. ⁸ He will be prepared after many days, and will come in the last years. He will come into the land turned away from the sword, when many are gathered together from the nations against the land of Israel, which was entirely a desert, and he will come forth from the nations against all who dwell in peace. ⁹ You shall arrive like rain, like a cloud to cover the land, you and all your army and the many nations with you.”
¹⁰ ‘Thus says the Lord and Master: “In that day it shall also come to pass that words will arise in your heart, and you will think evil thoughts. ¹¹ For you will say, ‘I will go up to the rejected land. I will come against those who live in peace and quiet, and who dwell in a land that has no wall, and neither bars nor gates, ¹² to plunder them and take spoils.’ I will turn your hand against a nation gathered from many nations, which acquired possessions and inhabitants in the midst of the land. ¹³ Sheba, Dedan, and Carthaginian merchants and all their villages shall say to you, ‘You come for plunder, to capture a prey and take spoils. You gather your assembly to take silver and gold, and to carry off possessions and take spoils.’ ” ’
¹⁴ “Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Will you not arise in that day, the day My people Israel dwell in peace? ¹⁵ Yes, you will come from your place out of the far north, you and the many nations with you, all riding on horses, a great assembly and a mighty army. ¹⁶ You will come upon My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. It shall come to pass in the last days that I will bring you against My land, that all the nations may know Me when I am sanctified in you before them.” ¹⁷ Thus says the Lord and Master to Gog, “You are he of whom I spoke in former days by the hand of My servants the prophets of Israel, in those days and years, that I would bring you up against them.
Gog Is Judged
¹⁸ “Thus it shall come to pass in that day, the day Gog comes against the land of Israel,” says the Lord and Master, ¹⁹ “that My anger and jealousy shall arise in the fire of My wrath. I have spoken, ‘Certainly in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. ²⁰ Even the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the wild animals of the plain, all the reptiles that creep on the ground, and all the people on the face of the land will shake because of the Lord’s presence. Also, the mountains will break apart, the valleys will be done away with, and every wall will fall to the ground.’ ²¹ I will also summon every fear against Gog,” says the Lord, “for the sword of every man shall be against his brother. ²² I will judge him with death and bloodshed, and I will send a flooding rain and hailstones, and fire and brimstone against him and everyone with him, and also against the many nations with him. ²³ For I shall be magnified, sanctified, and glorified, and known in the sight of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.’ ”
The Defeat of Gog
​¹ “As for you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Behold, I am against you, O Gog, the ruler of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. ² I will gather and guide you, and raise you up from the far north, and bring you upon the mountains of Israel. ³ Then I will destroy the bow in your left hand and the arrows in your right hand; and I will cast you down upon the mountains of Israel. ⁴ For you and all with you shall fall, and I shall give the nations with you to the multitude of birds, to every fowl. But I will give you to all the wild animals of the field to be devoured, ⁵ for you will fall on the face of the open plain, because I have spoken,” says the Lord. ⁶ “I will also send fire upon Gog, and the coastal peoples shall dwell in peace. Then they will know that I am the Lord, ⁷ and My holy name will be known in the midst of My people Israel; and My holy name will no longer be desecrated. The nations will also know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. ⁸ Behold, it is coming, and you will know it shall be,” says the Lord and Master.
“This is the day of which I have spoken. ⁹ Those who dwell in the cities of Israel will also go out and make a fire with the weapons: the shields and spears, the bows and arrows, and the javelins and lances; and they shall keep the fire burning for seven years. ¹⁰ So they will not take any wood from the field, nor cut down any of the forests; rather, they will burn the weapons, and plunder those who plundered them, and despoil those who took spoils from them,” says the Lord.
  A Burial for Gog
¹¹ “In that day it shall come to pass that I will give Gog a place of renown, a monument in Israel, a common burial place of those who come to the sea. There they shall bury Gog and all his multitude round about the edge of the valley, and it will be called the Burial Place of Gog. ¹² The house of Israel shall bury them, that the land may be cleansed in the space of seven months. ¹³ Yes, all the people of the land will bury them, and it shall be a place of renown for them in the day I was magnified,” says the Lord. ¹⁴ “So they will appoint men continually to pass through the land to bury those bodies yet on the ground, to cleanse it by the end of seven months; and they will seek them out. ¹⁵ Everyone who passes through the land and sees a man’s bone will also set a marker by it, until the grave diggers shall bury it in the Burial Place of Gog. ¹⁶ Indeed, the name of the city shall be Burial Place. Thus the land will be cleansed.’ ”
An Assembly of Triumph
¹⁷ “As for you, son of man, say, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Speak to every sort of bird and every wild animal of the field: ‘Assemble yourselves and come; gather together from all sides to My sacrifice which I offered up for you, a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, and you will eat meat and drink blood. ¹⁸ You will eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of the rulers of the earth: the rams, the young bulls, and the male goats; for they are all fatted animals. ¹⁹ You will eat fat until you are full, and drink wine until you are drunken from My sacrifice which I slaughtered for you. ²⁰ You will be filled at My table, eating horse and rider, and the mighty man, and every warrior,’ says the Lord.
²¹ “I will set My glory in your midst, and all the nations will see My judgment which I executed, and My hand which I laid on them. ²² Then the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God from this day forward. ²³ All the nations will also know that the house of Israel was led into captivity on account of their sins, because they rejected Me. So I turned My face away from them and delivered them into the hands of their enemies; and they all fell by the sword. ²⁴ According to their uncleanness and according to their lawless actions I dealt with them, and turned My face away from them.”
²⁵ ‘Therefore thus says the Lord and Master: “Now I will turn back the captivity of Jacob and have mercy on the house of Israel; and I will be jealous for the sake of My holy name. ²⁶ They shall bear their dishonor and the wrongdoing they committed when they dwelt upon the land in peace; and there shall be no one to frighten them. ²⁷ Thus when I bring them back from the nations and gather them from the countries of the nations, I will be sanctified among them in the sight of the nations. ²⁸ Then they will know that I am the Lord their God, when I reveal Myself to them among the nations. ²⁹ But I will not turn away My face from them anymore, because I poured out My anger on the house of Israel,” says the Lord and Master.’ ”
Ezekiel’s Vision: New City, New Temple
​¹ Again in the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, in the first month, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was captured, on the very same day, the hand of the Lord was upon me. ² He took me in a vision of God into the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain. On it, but opposite from me, was something like the structure of a city. ³ He took me there, and behold, there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of gleaming bronze. He had a builder’s cord and a measuring rod in his hand, and he stood at the gate. ⁴ Then the man said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this? Look with your eyes and hear with your ears, and fix your heart on everything I show you; for you were brought here that I might show them to you. For you shall reveal to the house of Israel everything you see.”
The East Gate of the Temple
⁵ Now there was a wall around the entire outside of the house. In the man’s hand was a measuring stick, six cubits long, each consisting of a cubit and a handbreadth, and he measured the width of the wall structure, one measuring stick, and the height, one measuring stick. ⁶ Then he went to the gate which faced east, up seven stairs, and measured across the entrance of the gate, one measuring stick wide. ⁷ Each gate chamber was one measuring stick long and one measuring stick wide. Between the gate chambers was a space of six cubits, and the second gate chamber was one measuring stick wide, one measuring stick long; and the entrance was five cubits. ⁸ The third gate chamber was one measuring stick wide and one measuring stick long. ⁹ The neighboring entrance was eight cubits, and the gatepost was two cubits, also the outer entrance of the gate.
¹⁰ The gate chambers were three on one side and three on the other. There was one measurement to all three and one measurement to the entrances on this side and the other. ¹¹ He measured the width of the entrance to the gate, ten cubits, and the length of the gate, thirteen cubits. ¹² The dimensions of the front of the gate chambers were equal, and the gate chambers were six cubits on this side and six cubits on that side. ¹³ Then he measured the gate from the roof of one gate chamber to the roof of the other, and the width was twenty-five cubits, from one gate to the other. ¹⁴ He measured the open inner court of the gate chamber, sixty cubits high, and there were twenty gate chambers all around. ¹⁵ From the open court of the gate outside into the open inner court of the gate chamber within was fifty cubits. ¹⁶ There were hidden windows in the gate chambers and in their entrances on the inside of the gate all around, and likewise the entrances had hidden windows all around. There were windows all around on the inside, and on each entrance chamber were ornamental palm trees, equally displayed on one side and the other.
  ¹⁷ Then he brought me into the inner court; and behold, there were temple chambers and pillars all around the court; thirty chambers among the pillars. ¹⁸ The porches were behind the gates; corresponding to the same length of the gates was the underlying pillar. ¹⁹ Then he measured the width of the court, from the open air court of the gate which was to the outside to the open air court of the gate which faces out, a hundred cubits to the court which faces east.
The North Gate
Then he led me to the north side, ²⁰ and behold, there was the gate facing north to the outer court, and he measured its length and its width. ²¹ Its gate chambers, three on this side and three on that side, its gateposts and its porches, and palm trees, and they were the same measurement of the gate which faces to the east: its length was fifty cubits and its width twenty-five cubits. ²² Its windows, its doorposts, and also its palm trees were just like the gate facing east, and it was ascended by seven steps, and the doorpost within. ²³ A gate of the inner court was opposite the northern gate, in the same manner as the eastern gate, and he measured from gate to gate, one hundred cubits.

Psalm 139

​¹ For the End; a psalm by David.
² Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man,
Rescue me from the unjust man,
³ Who devised wrongdoing in their heart;
They arrayed themselves for war all day long;
⁴ They sharpened their tongue like a serpent;
The venom of asps was under their lips.
(Pause)
⁵ Keep me, O Lord, from the hand of the sinner;
Deliver me from unjust men
Who plotted to trip up my steps;
⁶ The arrogant hid a trap for me,
And they stretched out ropes as snares for my feet;
They set a stumbling block for me near my path.
(Pause)
⁷ I said to the Lord, “You are my God;
Give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my supplication.
⁸ O Lord, O Lord, the power of my salvation,
You overshadowed my head in the day of war.
⁹ Because of my desire, O Lord, do not hand me over to the sinner;
They plotted against me; do not forsake me, lest they be exalted.
(Pause)
¹⁰ “As for the head of those who encircle me,
The toil of their lips shall cover them.
¹¹ Coals shall fall upon them;
You shall overthrow them with fire;
Do not let them withstand hardships.”
¹² A talkative man shall not prosper on earth;
Evils shall hunt the unjust man to destruction.
¹³ I know the Lord will maintain the cause of the poor man
And the justice of the needy.
¹⁴ Surely the righteous shall give thanks to Your name,
And the upright shall dwell in Your presence.

Proverbs 30:1–5

​¹ My son, fear my words,
And when you receive them, repent;
The man says these things to those who believe in God, then I cease speaking;
² For I am the most lacking of all men in discernment,
And the discernment of men is not in me;
³ God gives me wisdom,
And I know holy things.
⁴ Who ascends into heaven and descends?
Who gathers the winds in His bosom?
Who wraps up the water in a garment?
Who rules over all the ends of the earth?
What is His name, and what is the name of His children,
That you might acknowledge it?
⁵ All the words of God are tried in fire,
And He defends those who fear Him.

Revelation 10

​¹ I saw still another mighty angel coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. And a rainbow was on his head, his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire.
² He had a little book open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land,
³ and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roars. When he cried out, seven thunders uttered their voices.
⁴ Now when the seven thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and do not write them.”
⁵ The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised up his hand to heaven
⁶ and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer,
⁷ but in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.
John Eats the Little Book
⁸ Then the voice which I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “Go, take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the earth.”
⁹ So I went to the angel and said to him, “Give me the little book.” And he said to me, “Take and eat it; and it will make your stomach bitter, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.”
¹⁰ Then I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach became bitter.
¹¹ And he said to me, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.”