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Our hope over time is to grow a more intentional community of folks dedicated to meditating on God’s word day and night (Ps. 1:2).

In this third episode, we do four chapters from Genesis and two from the Gospel of John. Pray that we are driven into the scriptures more and more, such that we are more in Christ every day. Salvation can be found only in him!

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Genesis 4

1 And Adam had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. 

“With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man,” she said.

2 Later she gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel.

Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of the soil. 3 So in the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruit of the soil as an offering to the LORD, 4 while Abel brought the best portions of the firstborn of his flock.

And the LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but He had no regard for Cain and his offering. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell.

6 “Why are you angry,” said the LORD to Cain, “and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you, but you must master it.”

8 Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

9 And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I do not know!” he answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

10 “What have you done?” replied the LORD. “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. 11 Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you till the ground, it will no longer yield its produce to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

13 But Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment d is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, this day You have driven me from the face of the earth, and from Your face I will be hidden; I will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

15 “Not so!” replied the LORD. “If anyone slays Cain, then Cain will be avenged sevenfold.” And the LORD placed a mark on Cain, so that no one who found him would kill him.

16 So Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

17 And Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Then Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch.

18 Now to Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methusael, and Methusael was the father of Lamech. 19 And Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah.

20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and raise livestock. 21 And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute.

22 And Zillah gave birth to Tubal-cain, a forger of every implement of bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

23 Then Lamech said to his wives:

“Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;

wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For I have slain a man for wounding me,

a young man for striking me.

24 If Cain is avenged sevenfold,

then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” 

25 And Adam again had relations with his wife, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, h saying, “God has granted me another seed in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.”

26 And to Seth also a son was born, and he called him Enosh.

At that time men began to call upon i the name of the LORD.

Genesis 5

1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in His own likeness. 2 Male and female He created them, and He blessed them. And in the day they were created, He called them “man.” 

3 When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son in his own likeness, after his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 And after he had become the father of Seth, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 So Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died.

6 When Seth was 105 years old, he became the father of Enosh. 7 And after he had become the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 So Seth lived a total of 912 years, and then he died.

9 When Enosh was 90 years old, he became the father of Kenan. 10 And after he had become the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 So Enosh lived a total of 905 years, and then he died.

12 When Kenan was 70 years old, he became the father of Mahalalel. 13 And after he had become the father of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 So Kenan lived a total of 910 years, and then he died.

15 When Mahalalel was 65 years old, he became the father of Jared. 16 And after he had become the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 So Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years, and then he died.

18 When Jared was 162 years old, he became the father of Enoch. 19 And after he had become the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 So Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died.

21 When Enoch was 65 years old, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 And after he had become the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God c 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 So Enoch lived a total of 365 years.

24 Enoch walked with God, and then he was no more, because God had taken him away. 

25 When Methuselah was 187 years old, he became the father of Lamech. 26 And after he had become the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 So Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died.

28 When Lamech was 182 years old, he had a son. 29 And he named him Noah, saying, “May this one comfort us in the labor and toil of our hands caused by the ground that the LORD has cursed.” 30 And after he had become the father of Noah, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 So Lamech lived a total of 777 years, and then he died.

32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Genesis 6

1 Now when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took as wives whomever they chose.

3 So the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years.”

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown.

5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time. 

6 And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—every man and beast and crawling creature and bird of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”

8 Noah, however, found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

9 This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and full of violence. 12 And God looked upon the earth and saw that it was corrupt; for all living creatures on the earth had corrupted their ways.

13 Then God said to Noah, “The end of all living creatures has come before Me, because through them the earth is full of violence. Now behold, I will destroy both them and the earth.

14 Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 And this is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. 16 You are to make a roof e for the ark, finish its walls a cubit from the top, place a door in the side of the ark, and build lower, middle, and upper decks.

17 And behold, I will bring floodwaters upon the earth to destroy every creature under the heavens that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will perish. 18 But I will establish My covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

19 And you are to bring two of every living creature into the ark—male and female—to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird and animal and crawling creature will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are also to take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten and gather it as food for yourselves and for the animals.”

22 So Noah did everything precisely as God had commanded him.

Genesis 7

1 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate; 3 and seven pairs of every kind of bird of the air, male and female, to preserve their offspring on the face of all the earth. 

4 For seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living thing I have made.”

5 And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.

6 Now Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters came upon the earth. 7 And Noah and his wife, with his sons and their wives, entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 

8 The clean and unclean animals, the birds, and everything that crawls along the ground 9 came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two, male and female, as God had commanded Noah.

10 And after seven days the floodwaters came upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.

13 On that very day Noah entered the ark, along with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and his wife, and the three wives of his sons— 14 they and every kind of wild animal, livestock, crawling creature, bird, and winged creature. 

15 They came to Noah to enter the ark, two by two of every creature with the breath of life. 16 And they entered, the male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.

17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose and lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 So the waters continued to surge and rise greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters. 

19 Finally, the waters completely inundated the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered.

20 The waters rose and covered the mountaintops to a depth of fifteen cubits. 21 And every living thing that moved upon the earth perished—birds, livestock, animals, every creature that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind. 

22 Of all that was on dry land, everything that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 And every living thing on the face of the earth was destroyed—man and livestock, crawling creatures and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah and those with him in the ark remained.

24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth for 150 days.

John 4

1 When Jesus realized that the Pharisees were aware He  was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples), 3 He left Judea and returned to Galilee.

4 Now He had to pass through Samaria. 5 So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 “You are a Jew,” said the woman. “How can You ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 

10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” the woman replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are correct to say that you have no husband. 18 In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 

23 But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

26 Jesus answered, “I who speak to you am He.”

27 Just then His disciples returned and were surprised that He was speaking with a woman. But no one asked Him, “What do You want from her?” or “Why are You talking with her?”

28 Then the woman left her water jar, went back into the town, and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 So they left the town and made their way toward Jesus.

31 Meanwhile the disciples urged Him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

33 So the disciples asked one another, “Could someone have brought Him food?”

34 Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months until the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ripe for harvest.

36 Already the reaper draws his wages and gathers a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the hard work, and now you have taken up their labor.”

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days.

41 And many more believed because of His message. 42 They said to the woman, “We now believe not only because of your words; we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man truly is the Savior of the world.”

43 After two days, Jesus left for Galilee. 44 Now He Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown. 45 Yet when He arrived, the Galileans welcomed Him. They had seen all the great things He had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they had gone there as well.

46 So once again He came to Cana in Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.

48 Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.”

49 “Sir,” the official said, “come down before my child dies.”

50 “Go,” said Jesus. “Your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at His word and departed. 51 And while he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.

52 So he inquired as to the hour when his son had recovered, and they told him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.”

53 Then the father realized that this was the very hour in which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and all his household believed.

54 This was now the second sign that Jesus performed after coming from Judea into Galilee.

John 5

1 Some time later there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool with five covered colonnades, which in Hebrew is called Bethesda. 3 On these walkways lay a great number of the sick, the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. 

5 One man there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and realized that he had spent a long time in this condition, He asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”

8 Then Jesus told him, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.”

9 Immediately the man was made well, and he picked up his mat and began to walk.

Now this happened on the Sabbath day, 10 so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! It is unlawful for you to carry your mat.”

11 But he answered, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

12 “Who is this man who told you to pick it up and walk?” they asked.

13 But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while the crowd was there.

14 Afterward, Jesus found the man at the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.”

15 And the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

16 Now because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews began to persecute Him. 17 But Jesus answered them, “To this very day My Father is at His work, and I too am working.”

18 Because of this, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him. Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

19 So Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does. 20 The Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. And to your amazement, He will show Him even greater works than these. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wishes.

22 Furthermore, the Father judges no one, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, 

23 so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

24 Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment. Indeed, he has crossed over from death to life.

25 Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. 27 And He has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.

28 Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice 29 and come out—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. 

30 I can do nothing by Myself; I judge only as I hear. And My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

31 If I testify about Myself, My testimony is not valid. 32 There is another who testifies about Me, and I know that His testimony about Me is valid.

33 You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. 34 Even though I do not accept human testimony, I say these things so that you may be saved.

35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you were willing for a season to bask in his light. 36 But I have testimony more substantial than that of John. For the works that the Father has given Me to accomplish—the very works I am doing—testify about Me that the Father has sent Me. 

37 And the Father who sent Me has Himself testified about Me. You have never heard His voice nor seen His form, 38 nor does His word abide in you, because you do not believe the One He sent.

39 You pore over the Scriptures because you presume that by them you possess eternal life. These are the very words that testify about Me, 40 yet you refuse to come to Me to have life.

41 I do not accept glory from men, 42 but I know you, that you do not have the love of God within you. 43 I have come in My Father’s name, and you have not received Me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will receive him. 44 How can you believe if you accept glory from one another, yet do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

45 Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, in whom you have put your hope. 46 If you had believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”

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