Jer. 51:11–23
51:11 “Sharpen your arrows!
Fill your quivers!
The Lord will arouse a spirit of hostility in the kings of Media,
for he intends to destroy Babylonia.
For that is how the Lord will get his revenge—
how he will get his revenge for the Babylonians’ destruction of his temple.
12Give the signal to attack Babylon’s wall!
Bring more guards;
post them all around the city.
Put men in ambush,
for the Lord will do what he has planned.
He will do what he said he would do to the people of Babylon.
13“You who live along the rivers of Babylon,
the time of your end has come.
You who are rich in plundered treasure,
it is time for your lives to be cut off.
14The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has solemnly sworn,
‘I will fill your land with enemy soldiers.
They will swarm over it like locusts.
They will raise up shouts of victory over it.’
15He is the one who by his power made the earth.
He is the one who by his wisdom fixed the world in place;
by his understanding, he spread out the heavens.
16When his voice thunders, the waters in the heavens roar.
He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons;
he makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain.
He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it;
17all idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant.
Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.
For the image he forges is merely a sham;
there is no breath in any of those idols.
18They are worthless, objects to be ridiculed.
When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.
19The Lord, who is the portion of the descendants of Jacob, is not like them.
For he is the one who created everything,
including the people of Israel whom he claims as his own.
His name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
20“Babylon, you are my war club,
my weapon for battle.
I used you to smash nations.
I used you to destroy kingdoms.
21I used you to smash horses and their riders.
I used you to smash chariots and their drivers.
22I used you to smash men and women.
I used you to smash old men and young men.
I used you to smash young men and young women.
23I used you to smash shepherds and their flocks.
I used you to smash farmers and their teams of oxen.
I used you to smash governors and leaders.
(NET Bible)Ps. 39
39:1 For the music director, Jeduthun; a psalm of David.
I decided, “I will watch what I say
and make sure I do not sin with my tongue.
I will put a muzzle over my mouth
while in the presence of an evil person.”
2I was stone silent;
I held back the urge to speak.
My frustration grew;
3my anxiety intensified.
As I thought about it, I became impatient.
Finally I spoke these words:
4“O Lord, help me understand my mortality
and the brevity of life.
Let me realize how quickly my life will pass.
5Look, you make my days short lived,
and my life span is nothing from your perspective.
Surely all people, even those who seem secure, are nothing but vapor. (Selah)
6Surely people go through life as mere ghosts.
Surely they accumulate worthless wealth
without knowing who will eventually haul it away.”
7But now, O Lord, upon what am I relying?
You are my only hope!
8Deliver me from all my sins of rebellion.
Do not make me the object of fools’ insults.
9I am silent and cannot open my mouth
because of what you have done.
10Please stop wounding me.
You have almost beaten me to death.
11You severely discipline people for their sins;
like a moth you slowly devour their strength.
Surely all people are a mere vapor. (Selah)
12Hear my prayer, O Lord.
Listen to my cry for help.
Do not ignore my sobbing.
For I am a resident foreigner with you,
a temporary settler, just as all my ancestors were.
13Turn your angry gaze away from me, so I can be happy
before I pass away.
(NET Bible)Eph. 5:22–6:4
5:22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23because the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church (he himself being the savior of the body). 24But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word, 27so that he may present the church to himself as glorious—not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one has ever hated his own body, but he feeds it and takes care of it, just as Christ also does the church, 30because we are members of his body. 31For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32This mystery is great—but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33Nevertheless, each one of you must also love his own wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2“Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment accompanied by a promise, namely, 3“that it will go well with you and that you will live a long time on the earth.”
4Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but raise them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
(NET Bible)In 1538 and 1539 Luther wrote his powerful book Von den Conciliis un Kirchen and published it in 1539. In this he says: “If anyone would see still farther that the dear holy fathers were men, let him read the little book on the four chapters to the Corinthians by Dr. Pommer, our pastor. From it we must learn that St. Augustine was right when he said … that he will not believe any of the fathers unless he has the Scriptures on his side. Dear Lord God, if the Christian faith were to depend on men and be founded in human words, what were the need for the Holy Scriptures, or why has God given them? Let us draw them under the bench and lay the councils and the fathers on the desk instead! Or if the fathers were not men, how shall we men be saved? If they were men, they must also have thought, spoken, and acted sometimes as we think, speak, and act, and then said, like us, the prayer, ‘Forgive us our trespasses,’ especially since they have not the promise of the Spirit, like the apostles, and must be pupils of the apostles … When they build without the Scriptures, i.e., without gold, silver, precious stones, they have to build wood, straw, and hay; therefore we must follow the judgment of St. Paul and know how to distinguish between gold and wood, silver and straw, precious stones and hay.” (36)
–Johann Michael Reu, Luther on the Scriptures
This daily Bible reading guide, Reading the Word of God, was conceived and prepared as a result of the ongoing discussions between representatives of three church bodies: Lutheran Church—Canada (LCC), The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). The following individuals have represented their church bodies and approved this introduction and the reading guide: LCC: President Robert Bugbee; NALC: Bishop John Bradosky, Revs. Mark Chavez, James Nestingen, and David Wendel; LCMS: Revs. Albert Collver, Joel Lehenbauer, John Pless, and Larry Vogel.