'Bible-in-a-Year' Daily Bible Reading

Renewal of the Covenant

1 These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.

2 Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them:

Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land.
3 With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders.
4 But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear.
5 Yet the Lord says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.
6 You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.”

7 When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight against us, but we defeated them.
8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

9 Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do.
10 All of you are standing today in the presence of the Lord your God—your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel,
11 together with your children and your wives, and the foreigners living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water.
12 You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the Lord your God, a covenant the Lord is making with you this day and sealing with an oath,
13 to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
14 I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you
15 who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God but also with those who are not here today.

16 You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here.
17 You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold.
18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.

19 When such a person hears the words of this oath and they invoke a blessing on themselves, thinking, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way,” they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.
20 The Lord will never be willing to forgive them; his wrath and zeal will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will fall on them, and the Lord will blot out their names from under heaven.
21 The Lord will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

22 Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it.
23 The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger.
24 All the nations will ask: “Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?”

25 And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.
26 They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them.
27 Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book.
28 In furious anger and in great wrath the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”

29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

Prosperity After Turning to the Lord

1 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations,
2 and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today,
3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes[a] and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.
4 Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back.
5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.
6 The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
7 The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you.
8 You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today.
9 Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors,
10 if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The Offer of Life or Death

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.
12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”
13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”
14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.
16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,
18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Bildad

1 Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

2 “When will you end these speeches? Be sensible, and then we can talk.
3 Why are we regarded as cattle and considered stupid in your sight?
4 You who tear yourself to pieces in your anger, is the earth to be abandoned for your sake? Or must the rocks be moved from their place?

5 “The lamp of a wicked man is snuffed out; the flame of his fire stops burning.
6 The light in his tent becomes dark; the lamp beside him goes out.
7 The vigor of his step is weakened; his own schemes throw him down.
8 His feet thrust him into a net; he wanders into its mesh.
9 A trap seizes him by the heel; a snare holds him fast.
10 A noose is hidden for him on the ground; a trap lies in his path.
11 Terrors startle him on every side and dog his every step.
12 Calamity is hungry for him; disaster is ready for him when he falls.
13 It eats away parts of his skin; death’s firstborn devours his limbs.
14 He is torn from the security of his tent and marched off to the king of terrors.
15 Fire resides[a] in his tent; burning sulfur is scattered over his dwelling.
16 His roots dry up below and his branches wither above.
17 The memory of him perishes from the earth; he has no name in the land.
18 He is driven from light into the realm of darkness and is banished from the world.
19 He has no offspring or descendants among his people, no survivor where once he lived.
20 People of the west are appalled at his fate; those of the east are seized with horror.
21 Surely such is the dwelling of an evil man; such is the place of one who does not know God.”

Stephen’s Speech to the Sanhedrin

1 Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”

2 To this he replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.
3 ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’[a]

4 “So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.
5 He gave him no inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.
6 God spoke to him in this way: ‘For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated.
7 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’[b]
8 Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

9 “Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him
10 and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.

11 “Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.
12 When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit.
13 On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family.
14 After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.
15 Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died.
16 Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.

17 “As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased.
18 Then ‘a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.’[c]
19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.

20 “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child.[d] For three months he was cared for by his family.
21 When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.
22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.