One Year Bible.

I Will Open My Mouth in Parables

¹A Maskil of Asaph.

Give ear, O my people, to my instruction;

listen to the words of my mouth.

²I will open my mouth in parables;

I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

³that we have heard and known

and our fathers have relayed to us.

⁴We will not hide them from their children

but will declare to the next generation

the praises of the LORD and His might

and the wonders He has performed.

⁵For He established a testimony in Jacob

and appointed a law in Israel,

which He commanded our fathers

to teach to their children,

⁶that the coming generation would know them—

even children yet to be born—

to arise and tell their own children

⁷that they should put their confidence in God,

not forgetting His works,

but keeping His commandments.

⁸Then they will not be like their fathers,

a stubborn and rebellious generation,

whose heart was not loyal,

whose spirit was not faithful to God.

⁹The archers of Ephraim

turned back on the day of battle.

¹⁰They failed to keep God’s covenant

and refused to live by His law.

¹¹They forgot what He had done,

the wonders He had shown them.

¹²He worked wonders before their fathers

in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

¹³He split the sea and brought them through;

He set the waters upright like a wall.

¹⁴He led them with a cloud by day

and with a light of fire all night.

¹⁵He split the rocks in the wilderness

and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

¹⁶He brought streams from the stone

and made water flow down like rivers.

¹⁷But they continued to sin against Him,

rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

¹⁸They willfully tested God

by demanding the food they craved.

¹⁹They spoke against God, saying,

“Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

²⁰When He struck the rock, water gushed out

and torrents raged.

But can He also give bread

or supply His people with meat?”

²¹Therefore the LORD heard

and was filled with wrath;

so a fire was kindled against Jacob,

and His anger flared against Israel,

²²because they did not believe God

or rely on His salvation.

²³Yet He commanded the clouds above

and opened the doors of the heavens.

²⁴He rained down manna for them to eat;

He gave them grain from heaven.

²⁵Man ate the bread of angels;

He sent them food in abundance.

²⁶He stirred the east wind from the heavens

and drove the south wind by His might.

²⁷He rained meat on them like dust,

and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

²⁸He felled them in the midst of their camp,

all around their dwellings.

²⁹So they ate and were well filled,

for He gave them what they craved.

³⁰Yet before they had filled their desire,

with the food still in their mouths,

³¹God’s anger flared against them,

and He put to death their strongest

and subdued the young men of Israel.

³²In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;

despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

³³So He ended their days in futility,

and their years in sudden terror.

³⁴When He slew them, they would seek Him;

they repented and searched for God.

³⁵And they remembered that God was their Rock,

that God Most High was their Redeemer.

³⁶But they deceived Him with their mouths,

and lied to Him with their tongues.

³⁷Their hearts were disloyal to Him,

and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

³⁸And yet He was compassionate;

He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them.

He often restrained His anger

and did not unleash His full wrath.

³⁹He remembered that they were but flesh,

a passing breeze that does not return.

⁴⁰How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness

and grieved Him in the desert!

⁴¹Again and again they tested God

and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

⁴²They did not remember His power —

the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

⁴³when He performed His signs in Egypt

and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

⁴⁴He turned their rivers to blood,

and from their streams they could not drink.

⁴⁵He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,

and frogs that devastated them.

⁴⁶He gave their crops to the grasshopper,

the fruit of their labor to the locust.

⁴⁷He killed their vines with hailstones

and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

⁴⁸He abandoned their cattle to the hail

and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

⁴⁹He unleashed His fury against them,

wrath, indignation, and calamity—

a band of destroying angels.

⁵⁰He cleared a path for His anger;

He did not spare them from death

but delivered their lives to the plague.

⁵¹He struck all the firstborn of Egypt,

the virility in the tents of Ham.

⁵²He led out His people like sheep

and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

⁵³He led them safely, so they did not fear,

but the sea engulfed their enemies.

⁵⁴He brought them to His holy land,

to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

⁵⁵He drove out nations before them

and apportioned their inheritance;

He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

⁵⁶But they tested and disobeyed God Most High,

for they did not keep His decrees.

⁵⁷They turned back and were faithless like their fathers,

twisted like a faulty bow.

⁵⁸They enraged Him with their high places

and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

⁵⁹On hearing it, God was furious

and rejected Israel completely.

⁶⁰He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,

the tent He had pitched among men.

⁶¹He delivered His strength to captivity,

and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

⁶²He surrendered His people to the sword

because He was enraged by His heritage.

⁶³Fire consumed His young men,

and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

⁶⁴His priests fell by the sword,

but their widows could not lament.

⁶⁵Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,

like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

⁶⁶He beat back His foes;

He put them to everlasting shame.

⁶⁷He rejected the tent of Joseph

and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

⁶⁸But He chose the tribe of Judah,

Mount Zion, which He loved.

⁶⁹He built His sanctuary like the heights,

like the earth He has established forever.

⁷⁰He chose David His servant

and took him from the sheepfolds;

⁷¹from tending the ewes He brought him

to be shepherd of His people Jacob,

of Israel His inheritance.

⁷²So David shepherded them with integrity of heart

and guided them with skillful hands.

The Man of Lawlessness

¹Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, ²not to be easily disconcerted or alarmed by any spirit or message or letter seeming to be from us, alleging that the Day of the Lord has already come. ³Let no one deceive you in any way, for it will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness — the son of destruction — is revealed. ⁴He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

⁵Do you not remember that I told you these things while I was still with you? ⁶And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. ⁷For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now restrains it will continue until he is taken out of the way. ⁸And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth and annihilate by the majesty of His arrival.

⁹The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, ¹⁰and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. ¹¹For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, ¹²in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.

Stand Firm

¹³But we should always thank God for you, brothers who are loved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved by the sanctification of the Spirit and by faith in the truth. ¹⁴To this He called you through our gospel, so that you may share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵Therefore, brothers, stand firm and cling to the traditions we taught you, whether by speech or by letter.

¹⁶Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who by grace has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope, ¹⁷encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good word and deed.

Woes to Scribes and Pharisees

¹Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples: ²“The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. ³So practice and observe everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. ⁴They tie up heavy, burdensome loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

⁵All their deeds are done for men to see. They broaden their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. ⁶They love the places of honor at banquets, the chief seats in the synagogues, ⁷the greetings in the marketplaces, and the title of ‘Rabbi’ by which they are addressed.

⁸But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. ⁹And do not call anyone on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. ¹⁰Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Christ. ¹¹The greatest among you shall be your servant. ¹²For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

¹³Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter.

¹⁵Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You traverse land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

¹⁶Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁷You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes it sacred? ¹⁸And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.’ ¹⁹You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes it sacred? ²⁰So then, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. ²¹And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the One who dwells in it. ²²And he who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the One who sits on it.

²³Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. ²⁴You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

²⁵Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well.

²⁷Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity. ²⁸In the same way, on the outside you appear to be righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

²⁹Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous. ³⁰And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. ³²Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your fathers. ³³You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape the sentence of hell?

³⁴Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. ³⁵And so upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. ³⁶Truly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Lament over Jerusalem

³⁷O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! ³⁸Look, your house is left to you desolate. ³⁹For I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Temple Destruction and Other Signs

¹As Jesus left the temple and was walking away, His disciples came up to Him to point out its buildings.

²“Do you see all these things?” He replied. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

³While Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?”

⁴Jesus answered, “See to it that no one deceives you. ⁵For many will come in My name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. ⁶You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. These things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸All these are the beginning of birth pains.

Witnessing to All Nations

⁹Then they will deliver you over to be persecuted and killed, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. ¹⁰At that time many will fall away and will betray and hate one another, ¹¹and many false prophets will arise and deceive many.

¹²Because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. ¹³But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.

¹⁴And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

The Abomination of Desolation

¹⁵So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by the prophet Daniel (let the reader understand), ¹⁶then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷Let no one on the housetop come down to retrieve anything from his house. ¹⁸And let no one in the field return for his cloak.

¹⁹How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers! ²⁰Pray that your flight will not occur in the winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹For at that time there will be great tribulation, unseen from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be seen again. ²²If those days had not been cut short, nobody would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.

²³At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. ²⁵See, I have told you in advance.

The Return of the Son of Man

²⁶So if they tell you, ‘There He is, in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Here He is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. ²⁷For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ²⁸Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

²⁹Immediately after the tribulation of those days:

‘The sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light;

the stars will fall from the sky,

and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.’

³⁰At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

The Lesson of the Fig Tree

³²Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its branches become tender and sprout leaves, you know that summer is near. ³³So also, when you see all these things, you will know that He is near, right at the door. ³⁴Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened. ³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.

Readiness at Any Hour

³⁶No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³⁷As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. ³⁹And they were oblivious until the flood came and swept them all away. So will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.

⁴²Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come. ⁴³But understand this: If the homeowner had known in which watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴For this reason, you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.

⁴⁵Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the others their food at the proper time? ⁴⁶Blessed is that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. ⁴⁷Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

⁴⁸But suppose that servant is wicked and says in his heart, ‘My master will be away a long time.’ ⁴⁹And he begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. ⁵⁰The master of that servant will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not anticipate. ⁵¹Then he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.[’’]