Free Daily Bible Study Podcast

Genesis 13 | Matthew 12 | Nehemiah 2 | Acts 12

Although God had extended shocking grace by calling Abram in Genesis 12:1–3, we read in Genesis 12:10–20 that Abram disbelieves God and leaves the land of Canaan (where God had commanded him to remain) to go to Egypt during a famine. This act of disbelief and disobedience snowballed, and Abram was eventually caught in a lie by the pharaoh of Egypt, who had innocently taken Abram’s wife, Sarai, into his own house because Abram had said that she was merely his sister.

Two important things happen in the last half of Genesis 12 that set up what happens in Genesis 13. First, God preserves Abram and his promise to Abram in spite of Abram’s disobedience. Just like what will happen later in the story of Moses in the book of Exodus, God sent plagues on the house of Pharaoh to force Pharaoh to let God’s people (specifically, Sarai) go free. And second, Pharaoh expelled God’s people out of Egypt with a great deal of wealth—again, just like what will happen in the book of Exodus (Gen. 12:16; Ex. 12:35–36).

So, Abram returned with all of his great wealth to a place where he had earlier built an altar to offer sacrifices and worship the LORD, between Bethel and Ai (Gen. 12:8, 13:3–4), where “Abram called upon the name of the LORD” in worship and prayer.

But because of the great wealth Abram brought out of Egypt, the land he lived in was not enough to support both him and his nephew Lot, and so the two families had to part ways. Abram allowed Lot to choose for himself a portion of the land to live in, and Abram would take whatever was left over. So, Lot chose for himself the Jordan Valley, the region of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abram moved to Hebron.

The important part of this story is the fact that God reaffirms his promise to Abram to give all the land of Canaan to Abram’s offspring forever—and that Abram’s offspring would be as numerous as the dust of the earth (Gen. 13:14–17). Even in the wake of Abram’s disobedience by going to Egypt, God insists he will keep his promises so that his redemptive purposes would not fail. God reaffirms his promise that Abram would be the father of a new nation, out of which God would raise up the promised offspring who would redeem humanity from the curse of sin by crushing the head of the serpent.

And because God eventually raised up Jesus, this story in Genesis 13 proclaims to us that we can trust God even in the aftermath of our own failure. In Jesus, we have an assurance that God’s salvation comes not on the basis of our obedience but on the basis of Christ’s obedience by God’s mercy toward us.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 12 | Matthew 11 | Nehemiah 1 | Acts 11

If Genesis 11 is arguably the second lowest point in the Bible, then Genesis 12 is possibly the second most hopeful in the Bible—the only moment of greater triumph being the resurrection of Jesus. Since Genesis 3, everything in the unfolding story of the Scriptures has been downhill, from expulsion out of the Garden of Eden to fratricide to the Nephilim to the flood to the Tower of Babel.

But in Genesis 12, God makes a decisive, gracious move not to abandon humanity entirely but to move toward us through raising up one man through whom he will save the whole world.

As we meet Abram—whom God will later rename Abraham—it’s important to understand from the outset that Abram is not a righteous man when God calls him. We learn later in Joshua 24:2 that Abram was actually an idol worshiper with his family. Abram does become a righteous man, but in the exact same way that you or I become righteous—by the grace of God, through faith. We’ll see more about that in Genesis 15.

When God calls Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans (that is, the Babylonians) and out of his father’s house, God calls Abram by making specific promises in Genesis 12:1–3. First, God promises he will make Abram into a great nation (Gen. 12:2), despite the fact that Abram’s wife Sarai was barren (Gen. 11:30).

Second, God promises he would make Abram’s name great (Gen. 12:2). We should read this promise against the contrast of the people of Babylon (among whom Abram was living), who had sought to make a name for themselves by building a tower into heaven to assert their independence from God (Gen. 11:4). God would give Abram a name by grace, not on the basis of anything that Abram would achieve or accomplish.

Finally, God promises not only that he would bless Abram (Gen. 12:2) but that Abram would be the dividing line of blessing and cursing in the world. So, anyone who blesses Abram, God promises to bless, and anyone who curses Abram, God insists he must curse.1 God binds himself to bless and curse the whole world on the basis of how they relate to Abram.

What this means is that Abram is not simply one of the first examples of someone who exercises faith in God. Instead, Abram is something altogether different; he is the head of a new humanity, through whom God will bless the world, cursing anyone who curses him.

But additionally, this means that God is clarifying his promise from Genesis 3:15, that the offspring of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. In Genesis 12, God is announcing the specific line through whom this offspring will come—it will come through Abram, whose family will bless all the families of the earth.

1 Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1996), 42.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 11 | Matthew 10 | Ezra 10 | Acts 10

Arguably, Genesis 11 describes the second lowest point for humanity in the whole Bible—the only exception being the three days when Jesus lay dead in the tomb. We saw Adam and Eve expelled from intimate, direct fellowship with God in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. Then, Cain murdered his brother Abel in Genesis 4. After that, we saw the godly line of Seth (the sons of God) mingling with the wicked line of Cain in Genesis 6, leading to God’s withdrawing of his Holy Spirit from humanity, a situation so evil that God was compelled to destroy the world with a flood in Genesis 7–8.

But if you can believe it, the situation in Genesis 11 gets even worse.

Ominously, we read that all the people gathered in the land of Shinar (Gen. 11:1). If we know the rest of the Bible, this should raise our attention, because Shinar is the land where the city of Babylon exists (Dan. 1:2). In fact, we learn here in Genesis 11 where Babylon gets its name: the judgement of God in the form of a confused language that sounded like “Babel” (Gen. 11:9).1

This is our first encounter with Babylon, the great enemy of God’s people throughout the Scriptures.2 We do not read about the final destruction and fall of Babylon until Revelation 18, which marks the decisive victory of God immediately before the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth.

But already here in Genesis 11, we see the beginning of that rebellion in people who seek to build for themselves a tower that will reach into heaven to make a name for themselves. Make no mistake, they are asserting their equality with God by building a structure to reach up into heaven itself. Accordingly, God judges their arrogance by fragmenting their language and scattering them across the earth. This judgment is not reversed until the Day of Pentecost, when the apostles preach the gospel in the languages of all the diverse people groups who were in Jerusalem for the festival (Acts 2:5–12).

What makes this situation so grave is the fact that this is the last point where God deals generally with all peoples. By scattering them across the earth, God makes a general, common salvation nearly impossible.

Nearly impossible.

Hope comes at the very end of Genesis 11 where we read about the descendants of Terah, including a man named Abram. As we will see in the next chapter, God’s plan is to save the world not by dealing with the world generally but by raising up one man through whom God would bless all the families of the earth.

Through Abram, God promises to raise up the offspring who would eventually crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15)—the offspring of the woman, but also the offspring of Abraham: Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:16).

1 The ESV Bible includes a footnote explaining that “Babel sounds like the Hebrew for confused.”

2 We do find a brief mention of the city, however, in Genesis 10:10.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 9–10 | Matthew 9 | Ezra 9 | Acts 9

After God destroys the world with a flood during the days of Noah, he promises he will never pour out the same kind of judgment on the earth until the very end of time: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22).

In Genesis 8–9, God confirms this promise with the first explicit covenant we find in Scripture, often called the Noachian covenant. The first aspect of the Noachian covenant is that God commands humans to fill the earth. God repeats his earlier command he had given Adam and Eve in the Garden to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth (Gen. 1:28, 9:1). Even though God acknowledges that “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21), he nevertheless continues his plan of filling the earth with his image bearers.

Second, we see a new relationship between humans and animals within creation. Adam and Eve had been given dominion over all the creatures of the earth, but God now tells Noah that all animals would fear and dread humans (Gen. 1:28, 9:2) and that animals were now given to humans as food (Gen. 9:3) as long as the blood of the animals was not eaten.

Third, God places a renewed emphasis on human life by requiring capital punishment for anyone who sheds the blood of man (Gen. 9:5–6). This argument for capital punishment is not for the sake of deterrent or for revenge but for the sake of upholding the sanctity of God’s image. God made humankind in his own image, and so anyone who murders another human being strikes against the image of God.

Fourth, God confirms his promise with a covenant sign: a rainbow. We come across many other covenant signs in the rest of the Scriptures (circumcision, the Sabbath, Passover, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper), and this first covenant sign is very helpful in understanding the role and purpose of covenant signs. God says, “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (Gen. 9:16). It isn’t that God might forget his covenant promise but that the covenant sign acts as an everlasting symbol testifying again and again to the unbreakable nature of God’s promise. Even today, you and I still live under the protection of the Noachian covenant.

What’s so interesting about the Noachian covenant, however, is that it offers no clear provision for redemption—only for the preservation of life on the earth until the end of time. This raises a major question that should drive us forward, deeper into the story: When and how will God redeem his people from the curse of sin and death?

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 8 | Matthew 8 | Ezra 8 | Acts 8

In Genesis 6, God tells Noah to build a giant boat—an ark—that would carry him, his family, and every species of animal in creation. As a result of human wickedness, God promised to destroy the whole world with a flood.

The flood was more than mass destruction—it was the undoing of creation itself. Every good creature God had made, he would destroy: “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen. 6:7).

Water was a symbol of chaos and rebellion against God. Before God brought order to creation, nothing existed except the chaotic waters (Gen. 1:2), and the biblical writers frequently praise God for how he had set permanent boundaries to the waters, insisting that they not trespass onto the land (Gen. 1:9–10; Job 38:8–11; Ps. 104:6–9; Prov. 8:29; Jer. 5:22).

“But Noah found favor [lit., “grace”] in the eyes of the LORD” (Gen. 6:8). Even though God was destroying the entire world around Noah, God ordained a vehicle through which Noah and his family could be brought safely through the flood.

Even more, God preserved male and female representatives from every species of animal. As soon as the flood subsided so that there was again dry ground, God repeated the mandate that he had given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, telling people and animals alike to “be fruitful and multiply on the earth” (Gen. 8:17). Although God had nearly annihilated creation with a flood, he preserved a remnant through whom he would repopulate the whole world.

Of all the New Testament writers, the apostle Peter seems the most interested in the implications of this story of the flood. First, Peter states in 1 Peter 3:18–22 that our baptism corresponds to the ark as the means by which God graciously brings us through his judgment. Our baptism does not cleanse the dirt from our bodies, Peter writes, but the dirt from our souls, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Second, Peter explains in 2 Peter 3:5–7 that the story of the flood contains a warning for future judgment. God promises in Genesis 9 that he will never again destroy the world with a flood, but the day is coming, Peter writes, when God will destroy the world with fire.

The story of Noah is a story of grace, but also of judgment. In other words, the story of Noah is a story about the gospel: all those who have been baptized into Christ will be preserved and protected from the coming judgment for those who reject Christ like those in Noah’s day rejected the ark.

Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 7 | Matthew 7 | Ezra 7 | Acts 7

In the wake of the intermingling of the sons of God (the godly line of Seth) and the daughters of man (the wicked line of Cain) that we looked at yesterday in Genesis 6, God makes a promise: “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years” (Gen. 6:3). What does this mean?

Some have taken this to mean that individuals would now have shorter lifespans, so that each person is limited to living only 120 years, but there are two problems with that interpretation. First, several biblical figures live longer than 120 years after this promise in Genesis 6, including Sarah (127 years; Gen. 23:1), Abraham (175 years; Gen. 25:7), Ishmael (137 years; Gen. 25:17), and Jacob (147 years; Gen. 47:28). Second, the immediate context of this promise brings us directly to the destruction of humankind through a flood.

So, God says that he will withdraw his Spirit from their midst (Gen. 6:3). Up until this point, God’s Spirit had apparently dealt generally with humankind to “abide” in them, or more literally, to “strive” or “plead a cause” with them. The language suggests that God’s Spirit had personally sought out repentance from these people. But when they persisted in their disobedience, God judged them by giving them what they wanted: he withdrew the Spirit’s presence from their lives.1

We tend to think of the flood as God’s great judgment against humanity—and the flood was indeed severe—but we should not overlook the severity of withdrawing the Holy Spirit. We were created to be dwelling places for the Holy Spirit, so losing the direct presence of the Holy Spirit was a new kind of death. Just as Adam and Eve experienced spiritual death (leading to their physical death) by being expelled from the direct presence of God in the Garden of Eden, so now in Genesis 6 humanity experiences deeper consequences of that spiritual death by losing the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit—and as a result, God brings the judgment to completion by also sending physical death through a flood.

The rest of the story of the Bible tells how God’s people come to regain the Holy Spirit. For awhile, God only gave his Spirit to specially anointed leaders, like prophets (1 Sam. 10:10), priests (2 Chron. 24:20), and kings (1 Sam. 16:13). These leaders mediated the presence of God’s Spirit to the people, who were not allowed to experience God’s Spirit directly.

But Jesus came to restore the Spirit to us. After his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus received from his Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and then poured out the Holy Spirit on his people (Acts 2:33). Through Jesus, we receive back what was lost all the way back in Genesis 6: the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 6 | Matthew 6 | Ezra 6 | Acts 6

The short, vague description of the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1–4 has spawned all kinds of strange interpretations over the years. Are the sons of God fallen angels who took for themselves human wives, creating demigod children? Is this just run-of-the-mill mythological literature, the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek Hercules (the offspring of Zeus and a human woman)?

I don’t think so. Instead, I’m convinced by those who hold a much simpler interpretation of this passage. To me, the best explanation of this text is to understand the phrases “sons of God” and “daughters of man” not as references to angels and humans but as references to the genealogies of Seth and Cain, respectively.

The “sons of God,” then, are the godly descendants of Seth, the son who replaced Abel as Adam and Eve’s offspring (Gen. 4:25). The lineage of Seth culminates in Noah, the one who would bring relief from the curse of the ground (Gen. 5:29). The “daughters of man” are the wicked descendants of Cain, a line that culminates in the shocking Lamech, who flippantly murders a man who had merely hit him (Gen. 4:23–24).

There are a few reasons why this interpretation makes the most sense. First, understanding the sons of God as human beings and not as some kind of supernatural creatures helps avoid the bizarre idea that angels or other supernatural creatures can somehow procreate with human beings. This is the only passage even remotely suggesting such a thing, so it probably isn’t wise to build an entire doctrine of angel reproductive capabilities from this one passage.

Second, the context of Genesis 4–5 almost demands this interpretation of the Nephilim. In Genesis 5:3, we read that Adam “fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” The phrases “in his own likeness” and “after his image” echo God’s own creation of Adam (Gen. 5:1; cf. Gen. 1:26–27). It isn’t that God “fathered” Adam in the same way that Adam fathered Seth (and not in the way the Son of God was begotten), but Genesis 5 is written to describe the sons of God, beginning with Adam.

All of this comes down to the promise that God gave Adam and Eve in the Garden, that the offspring of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The wickedness is that God had raised up a godly line through Seth but that Seth’s offspring began to mingle with the offspring of Cain, which God had cursed. We aren’t very far along in salvation history, and already God’s people are jeopardizing the coming of the One who would crush the serpent’s head.

Think through the story of the Bible—how many ways can you recall where God overcame the failures of his people to bring salvation into the world through his Son Jesus?

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 5 | Matthew 5 | Ezra 5 | Acts 5

It’s tempting to gloss over the many genealogies included in the Bible, but there are important reasons not to. God himself decided to place the text of genealogies within his written word, so we should recognize that the genealogies are canonical Scripture just as much as the more familiar verses like John 3:16. Genealogies may require more careful study, but they are worth the work.

The overarching idea in Genesis 4–5 is to contrast the wickedness of the descendants of Cain with the righteousness of the descendants of Seth. The text does not completely demonize the offspring of Cain but points out all of the significant cultural advancements they achieved, including city-building, livestock domestication, music, and blacksmithing (Gen. 4:17–22).

Still, the line of Cain culminates in a wicked man named Lamech, who boasts that he murdered a young man who had merely struck him (Gen. 4:23–24). Even more disturbing, Lamech essentially dares God to punish him by sneering at the fact his own crime was far worse than Cain’s—seventy-seven times worse.

On the other hand, we see in Genesis 5:1–5 that Seth is considered the true offspring of Adam, so God’s promises to save the world through the offspring of the woman (Gen. 3:15) are traced through Seth, not Cain. So, the line of Seth is filled with righteous people like Enoch, who “walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Gen. 5:24).

But the spotlight in this passage shines on Noah. Even Noah’s father, Lamech (not the same Lamech as earlier), saw that his son would play some role in God’s redemptive purposes: “Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Gen. 5:29; cf. Gen. 3:17–19). Just as Eve saw Seth as the promised offspring of woman who would save God’s people, so now Lamech sees Noah in that light—but like Seth, Noah would only be a partial fulfillment of that prophecy.

The reason, then, that the Bible includes so many genealogies is that God makes genealogical promises. It is the offspring of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent, and after Seth and Noah, we learn that it will be the offspring of Abram who will bless the whole world (Gen. 12:3). Then, it is the offspring of David who will forever sit on the throne over Israel (2 Sam. 7:11–16).

So, Jesus’ genealogical records in Matthew 1:1–17 and Luke 3:23–38 are central to the gospel. God is telling us that his promises about the offspring of the woman find their yes and amen in Jesus Christ, the son of David, son of Abram, son of Noah, son of Seth, son of Adam, and the Son of God.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 4 | Matthew 4 | Ezra 4 | Acts 4

Isn’t it shocking to find a story of murder only one chapter after Adam and Eve are expelled from the perfections of the Garden of Eden? This act of fratricide in Genesis 4 demonstrates that the curse of sin already has a vice-grip on humanity, and in today’s meditation, we’ll look at several implications of this new, grim reality in God’s creation.

First, we shouldn’t miss the fact that sacrifice has already become a necessary part of how human beings interact with God. Although Cain brings an unacceptable sacrifice before Yahweh, he nevertheless understands that he is supposed to bring the sacrifice.

What’s more, it even seems that Cain and Abel already know some of the rules and principles that would eventually regulate the kind and quality of sacrifice that God would later demand from Israel. Yahweh’s question for Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” (Gen. 4:7), only makes sense if Cain has some kind of an idea of what “doing well” would mean. Abel understands, since he brings the animal sacrifices from the firstborn of the flock as well as the fattest of his flock, and God is pleased with his offering (Gen. 4:4). Even at this early stage in human history, the sacrificial principle of offering another’s life (an animal) in exchange for your own life is in place.

Second, we see Yahweh’s grace even in the curse he places on Cain. Cain’s sin deserved swift, severe, and total judgment, and while Yahweh’s judgment was swift and severe, it was not total. Yahweh graciously placed a mark on Cain so that anyone who took vengeance on him by trying to kill him would face a more severe punishment (Gen. 4:15). This will be a constant theme throughout the Bible: how can a righteous God punish sin appropriately but stop short of condemning the whole world to hell? Ultimately, this question will only be resolved at the cross of Jesus.

Third, we should pay careful attention to the way that Eve describes Seth, the son who replaced Abel. She describes him as “offspring” (Gen. 4:25), because this is the word from the promise Yahweh made in Genesis 3:15 to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” It sounds as though Eve expected this salvation—where God would crush the head of the serpent who had tempted Adam and Eve to sin—to come immediately. The loss of Abel was devastating, but she seems to expect Seth to take Abel’s place to fulfill God’s promise.

And Seth would fulfill God’s promise, but not directly, and not immediately. Instead, God’s promise would be fulfilled through the offspring of Seth’s offspring, several generations down the line.

We will continue looking at this theme of offspring tomorrow.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Genesis 3 | Matthew 3 | Ezra 3 | Acts 3

Although it’s difficult to see in English translations, Genesis 3:8 is one of the most tragic verses in the whole Bible: “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” The form of the word “walking” used in this passage is better translated as “walking back and forth,” a phrase describing the perfection of Yahweh’s presence with his people. This is what Adam and Eve lost: personal, intimate, and free fellowship with Yahweh himself.1

But this isn’t the last place we see Yahweh “walking back and forth” among his people. Later in the Bible, we will see how this word is used to describe Yahweh’s presence in the midst of Israel’s camp, and particularly within the tabernacle and the temple (Lev. 26:12; Deut. 23:14; 2 Sam. 7:6–7).

Why? Because the story of the Bible relates how Yahweh overcomes sin to dwell with his people again.

The tabernacle under Moses is a first step, with the more permanent temple built under Solomon as the next step. But ultimately, the sin of Israel drives Yahweh to depart from the temple (Ezek. 10, 11:14–25), and then to destroy the temple altogether (2 Kings 25:9). Even when Israel rebuilds the temple (Ezra 6:14), Yahweh’s presence never enters a temple building again.

So, it should come as a shock when we read in John 1:14 that “the Word became flesh and dwelt [lit., “tabernacled”] among us.” And when Jesus defied the Jews, saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), it should surprise us to find out he was speaking about the temple of his own body (John 2:21).

But in fact everything Jesus would be and do was prophesied right back here in Genesis 3:15, a verse theologians call “the first gospel.” Here, God promises that he will raise up from the woman offspring who will eventually bruise the head of the serpent, while the serpent will only be able to bruise his heel. And once Jesus Christ puts Satan away forever, God will once again dwell with his people.

Today, we are now awaiting the scene foretold in Revelation 21:3: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” On that day, there will be “no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev. 21:22).

So let’s keep reading—there is an incredible story to bring us from Genesis 3 to Revelation 21.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.