One Year Bible.

Who May Dwell on Your Holy Mountain?

¹A Psalm of David.

O LORD, who may abide in Your tent?

Who may dwell on Your holy mountain?

²He who walks with integrity

and practices righteousness,

who speaks the truth from his heart,

³who has no slander on his tongue,

who does no harm to his neighbor,

who casts no scorn on his friend,

⁴who despises the vile

but honors those who fear the LORD,

who does not revise a costly oath,

⁵who lends his money without interest

and refuses a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things

will never be shaken.

James Killed, Peter Imprisoned

¹About that time, King Herod reached out to harm some who belonged to the church. ²He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.

³And seeing that this pleased the Jews, Herod proceeded to seize Peter during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. ⁴He arrested him and put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out to the people after the Passover.

The Rescue of Peter

⁵So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was fervently praying to God for him.

⁶On the night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, with sentries standing guard at the entrance to the prison. ⁷Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. ⁸“Get dressed and put on your sandals,” said the angel. Peter did so, and the angel told him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.”

⁹So Peter followed him out, but he was unaware that what the angel was doing was real. He thought he was only seeing a vision. ¹⁰They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city, which opened for them by itself. When they had gone outside and walked the length of one block, the angel suddenly left him.

¹¹Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from Herod’s grasp and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.”

¹²And when he had realized this, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered together and were praying. ¹³He knocked at the outer gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer it. ¹⁴When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that she forgot to open the gate, but ran inside and announced, “Peter is standing at the gate!”

¹⁵“You are out of your mind,” they told her. But when she kept insisting it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

¹⁶But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astounded. ¹⁷Peter motioned with his hand for silence, and he described how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. “Send word to James and to the brothers,” he said, and he left for another place.

¹⁸At daybreak there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. ¹⁹After Herod had searched for him unsuccessfully, he examined the guards and ordered that they be executed. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent some time there.

The Death of Herod

²⁰Now Herod was in a furious dispute with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they convened before him. Having secured the support of Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their region depended on the king’s country for food. ²¹On the appointed day, Herod donned his royal robes, sat on his throne, and addressed the people. ²²And they began to shout, “This is the voice of a god, not a man!”

²³Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

²⁴But the word of God continued to spread and multiply.

²⁵When Barnabas and Saul had fulfilled their mission to Jerusalem, they returned, bringing with them John, also called Mark.

Jeremiah’s Message at the Temple Gate

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, ²“Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and proclaim this message: Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the LORD. ³Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel: Correct your ways and deeds, and I will let you live in this place. ⁴Do not trust in deceptive words, saying:

‘This is the temple of the LORD,

the temple of the LORD,

the temple of the LORD.’

⁵For if you really correct your ways and deeds, if you act justly toward one another, ⁶if you no longer oppress the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow, and if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods to your own harm, ⁷then I will let you live in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

⁸But look, you keep trusting in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰and then come and stand before Me in this house, which bears My Name, and say, ‘We are delivered, so we can continue with all these abominations’? ¹¹Has this house, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Yes, I too have seen it, declares the LORD.

¹²But go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for My Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. ¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and because I have spoken to you again and again but you would not listen, and I have called to you but you would not answer, ¹⁴therefore what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears My Name, the house in which you trust, the place that I gave to you and your fathers. ¹⁵And I will cast you out of My presence, just as I have cast out all your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.

Judah’s Idolatry Persists

¹⁶As for you, do not pray for these people, do not offer a plea or petition on their behalf, and do not beg Me, for I will not listen to you. ¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger. ¹⁹But am I the One they are provoking? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves they spite, to their own shame?

²⁰Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

²¹This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! ²²For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, ²³but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

²⁴Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but they followed the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. ²⁵From the day your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets again and again. ²⁶Yet they would not listen to Me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and did more evil than their fathers.

²⁷When you tell them all these things, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer. ²⁸Therefore you must say to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the voice of the LORD their God and would not receive correction. Truth has perished; it has disappeared from their lips. ²⁹Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’

The Valley of Slaughter

³⁰For the people of Judah have done evil in My sight, declares the LORD. They have set up their abominations in the house that bears My Name, and so have defiled it. ³¹They have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben-hinnom so they could burn their sons and daughters in the fire — something I never commanded, nor did it even enter My mind.

³²So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth and the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. For they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. ³³The corpses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to scare them away.

³⁴I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sounds of joy and gladness and the voices of the bride and bridegroom, for the land will become a wasteland.”

Judah’s Sin and Punishment

¹“At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves. ²They will be exposed to the sun and moon, and to all the host of heaven which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped. Their bones will not be gathered up or buried, but will become like dung lying on the ground. ³And wherever I have banished them, the remnant of this evil family will choose death over life,” declares the LORD of Hosts.

⁴So you are to tell them this is what the LORD says:

“Do men fall and not get up again?

Does one turn away and not return?

⁵Why then have these people turned away?

Why does Jerusalem always turn away?

They cling to deceit;

they refuse to return.

⁶I have listened and heard;

they do not speak what is right.

No one repents of his wickedness,

asking, ‘What have I done?’

Everyone has pursued his own course

like a horse charging into battle.

⁷Even the stork in the sky

knows her appointed seasons.

The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush

keep their time of migration,

but My people do not know

the requirements of the LORD.

⁸How can you say, ‘We are wise,

and the Law of the LORD is with us,’

when in fact the lying pen of the scribes

has produced a deception?

⁹The wise will be put to shame;

they will be dismayed and trapped.

Since they have rejected the word of the LORD,

what wisdom do they really have?

¹⁰Therefore I will give their wives to other men

and their fields to new owners.

For from the least of them to the greatest,

all are greedy for gain;

from prophet to priest,

all practice deceit.

¹¹They dress the wound of the daughter of My people

with very little care,

saying, ‘Peace, peace,’

when there is no peace at all.

¹²Are they ashamed of the abomination they have committed?

No, they have no shame at all;

they do not even know how to blush.

So they will fall among the fallen;

when I punish them, they will collapse,

says the LORD.

¹³I will take away their harvest,

declares the LORD.

There will be no grapes on the vine,

nor figs on the tree,

and even the leaf will wither.

Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.”

The People Respond

¹⁴Why are we just sitting here?

Gather together,

let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there,

for the LORD our God has doomed us.

He has given us poisoned water to drink,

because we have sinned against the LORD.

¹⁵We hoped for peace,

but no good has come,

for a time of healing,

but there was only terror.

¹⁶The snorting of enemy horses

is heard from Dan.

At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds,

the whole land quakes.

They come to devour the land and everything in it,

the city and all who dwell in it.

¹⁷“For behold, I will send snakes among you,

vipers that cannot be charmed,

and they will bite you,”

declares the LORD.

Jeremiah Weeps for His People

¹⁸My sorrow is beyond healing;

my heart is faint within me.

¹⁹Listen to the cry of the daughter of my people

from a land far away:

“Is the LORD no longer in Zion?

Is her King no longer there?”

“Why have they provoked Me to anger

with their carved images,

with their worthless foreign idols?”

²⁰“The harvest has passed, the summer has ended,

but we have not been saved.”

²¹For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am crushed.

I mourn; horror has gripped me.

²²Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is no physician there?

Why then has the health of the daughter of my people

not been restored?