The Daily Practice

1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

4 John,

To the seven churches in the province of Asia:

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits[a] before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

7 “Look, he is coming with the clouds,”[b]     and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”;     and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”[c] So shall it be! Amen.

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

1 I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart;     I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. 2 I will be glad and rejoice in you;     I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.

3 My enemies turn back;     they stumble and perish before you. 4 For you have upheld my right and my cause,     sitting enthroned as the righteous judge. 5 You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked;     you have blotted out their name for ever and ever. 6 Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies,     you have uprooted their cities;     even the memory of them has perished.

7 The Lord reigns forever;     he has established his throne for judgment. 8 He rules the world in righteousness     and judges the peoples with equity. 9 The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,     a stronghold in times of trouble. 10 Those who know your name trust in you,     for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.

11 Sing the praises of the Lord, enthroned in Zion;     proclaim among the nations what he has done. 12 For he who avenges blood remembers;     he does not ignore the cries of the afflicted.

13 Lord, see how my enemies persecute me!     Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death, 14 that I may declare your praises     in the gates of Daughter Zion,     and there rejoice in your salvation.

15 The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug;     their feet are caught in the net they have hidden. 16 The Lord is known by his acts of justice;     the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.[c] 17 The wicked go down to the realm of the dead,     all the nations that forget God. 18 But God will never forget the needy;     the hope of the afflicted will never perish.

19 Arise, Lord, do not let mortals triumph;     let the nations be judged in your presence. 20 Strike them with terror, Lord;     let the nations know they are only mortal.

6 Seek the Lord and live,     or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire; it will devour them,     and Bethel will have no one to quench it.

7 There are those who turn justice into bitterness     and cast righteousness to the ground.

8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion,     who turns midnight into dawn     and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea     and pours them out over the face of the land—     the Lord is his name. 9 With a blinding flash he destroys the stronghold     and brings the fortified city to ruin.

10 There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court     and detest the one who tells the truth.

11 You levy a straw tax on the poor     and impose a tax on their grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,     you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards,     you will not drink their wine. 12 For I know how many are your offenses     and how great your sins.

There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes     and deprive the poor of justice in the courts. 13 Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times,     for the times are evil.

14 Seek good, not evil,     that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you,     just as you say he is. 15 Hate evil, love good;     maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy     on the remnant of Joseph.

16 Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says:

“There will be wailing in all the streets     and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep     and the mourners to wail. 17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards,     for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.

33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone the builders rejected     has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this,     and it is marvelous in our eyes’[a]?

43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”[b]

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” 19 These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.[a]

24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

1 Lord, our Lord,     how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory     in the heavens. 2 Through the praise of children and infants     you have established a stronghold against your enemies,     to silence the foe and the avenger. 3 When I consider your heavens,     the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars,     which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,     human beings that you care for them?[c]

5 You have made them[d] a little lower than the angels[e]     and crowned them[f] with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;     you put everything under their[g] feet: 7 all flocks and herds,     and the animals of the wild, 8 the birds in the sky,     and the fish in the sea,     all that swim the paths of the seas.

9 Lord, our Lord,     how majestic is your name in all the earth!

6 “I gave you empty stomachs in every city     and lack of bread in every town,     yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

7 “I also withheld rain from you     when the harvest was still three months away. I sent rain on one town,     but withheld it from another. One field had rain;     another had none and dried up. 8 People staggered from town to town for water     but did not get enough to drink,     yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

9 “Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards,     destroying them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees,     yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

10 “I sent plagues among you     as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword,     along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps,     yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

11 “I overthrew some of you     as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire,     yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

12 “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel,     and because I will do this to you, Israel,     prepare to meet your God.”

13 He who forms the mountains,     who creates the wind,     and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness,     and treads on the heights of the earth—     the Lord God Almighty is his name.

23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”

24 Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”

27 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James,

To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for[a] Jesus Christ:

2 Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.

3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. 4 For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about[b] long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

5 Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord[c] at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. 7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

8 In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. 9 But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”[d] 10 Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them.

11 Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.

12 These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. 13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

14 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15 to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”[e] 16 These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.

1 Lord my God, I take refuge in you;     save and deliver me from all who pursue me, 2 or they will tear me apart like a lion     and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.

3 Lord my God, if I have done this     and there is guilt on my hands— 4 if I have repaid my ally with evil     or without cause have robbed my foe— 5 then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;     let him trample my life to the ground     and make me sleep in the dust.[c]

6 Arise, Lord, in your anger;     rise up against the rage of my enemies.     Awake, my God; decree justice. 7 Let the assembled peoples gather around you,     while you sit enthroned over them on high. 8     Let the Lord judge the peoples. Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness,     according to my integrity, O Most High. 9 Bring to an end the violence of the wicked     and make the righteous secure— you, the righteous God     who probes minds and hearts.

10 My shield[d] is God Most High,     who saves the upright in heart. 11 God is a righteous judge,     a God who displays his wrath every day. 12 If he does not relent,     he[e] will sharpen his sword;     he will bend and string his bow. 13 He has prepared his deadly weapons;     he makes ready his flaming arrows.

14 Whoever is pregnant with evil     conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment. 15 Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out     falls into the pit they have made. 16 The trouble they cause recoils on them;     their violence comes down on their own heads.

17 I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness;     I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.