1 Samuel 21

• 1. David went to the city of Nob to see Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he saw him. "Why are you alone?" he asked. "Why is no one with you?"
• 2. "The king has sent me on a private matter," David said. "He told me not to tell anyone why I am here. I have told my men where to meet me later.
• 3. Now, what is there to eat? Give me five loaves of bread or anything else you have."
• 4. "We don't have any regular bread," the priest replied. "But there is the holy bread, which I guess you can have if your young men have not slept with any women recently."
• 5. "Don't worry," David replied. "I never allow my men to be with women when they are on a campaign. And since they stay clean even on ordinary trips, how much more on this one!"
• 6. So, since there was no other food available, the priest gave him the holy bread--the Bread of the Presence that was placed before the LORD in the Tabernacle. It had just been replaced that day with fresh bread.
• 7. Now Doeg the Edomite, Saul's chief herdsman, was there that day for ceremonial purification.
• 8. David asked Ahimelech, "Do you have a spear or sword? The king's business was so urgent that I didn't even have time to grab a weapon!"
• 9. "I only have the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah," the priest replied. "It is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. Take that if you want it, for there is nothing else here.There is nothing like it!" David replied. "Give it to me!"
• 10. So David escaped from Saul and went to King Achish of Gath.
• 11. But Achish's officers weren't happy about his being there. "Isn't this David, the king of the land?" they asked. "Isn't he the one the people honor with dances, singing, `Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands'?"
• 12. David heard these comments and was afraid of what King Achish might do to him.
• 13. So he pretended to be insane, scratching on doors and drooling down his beard.
• 14. Finally, King Achish said to his men, "Must you bring me a madman?
• 15. We already have enough of them around here! Why should I let someone like this be my guest?"

1 Samuel 22

• 1. So David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. Soon his brothers and other relatives joined him there.
• 2. Then others began coming--men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented--until David was the leader of about four hundred men.
• 3. Later David went to Mizpeh in Moab, where he asked the king, "Would you let my father and mother live here under royal protection until I know what God is going to do for me?"
• 4. The king agreed, and David's parents stayed in Moab while David was living in his stronghold.
• 5. One day the prophet Gad told David, "Leave the stronghold and return to the land of Judah." So David went to the forest of Hereth.
• 6. The news of his arrival in Judah soon reached Saul. At the time, the king was sitting beneath a tamarisk tree on the hill at Gibeah, holding his spear and surrounded by his officers.
• 7. "Listen here, you men of Benjamin!" Saul shouted when he heard the news. "Has David promised you fields and vineyards? Has he promised to make you commanders in his army?
• 8. Is that why you have conspired against me? For not one of you has ever told me that my own son is on David's side. You're not even sorry for me. Think of it! My own son--encouraging David to try and kill me!"
• 9. Then Doeg the Edomite, who was standing there with Saul's men, spoke up. "When I was at Nob," he said, "I saw David talking to Ahimelech the priest.
• 10. Ahimelech consulted the LORD to find out what David should do. Then he gave David food and the sword of Goliath the Philistine."
• 11. King Saul immediately sent for Ahimelech and all his family, who served as priests at Nob.
• 12. When they arrived, Saul shouted at him, "Listen to me, you son of Ahitub!What is it, my king?" Ahimelech asked.
• 13. "Why have you and David conspired against me?" Saul demanded. "Why did you give him food and a sword? Why have you inquired of God for him? Why did you encourage him to revolt against me and to come here and attack me?"
• 14. "But sir," Ahimelech replied, "is there anyone among all your servants who is as faithful as David, your son-in-law? Why, he is the captain of your bodyguard and a highly honored member of your household!
• 15. This was certainly not the first time I had consulted God for him! Please don't accuse me and my family in this matter, for I knew nothing of any plot against you."
• 16. "You will surely die, Ahimelech, along with your entire family!" the king shouted.
• 17. And he ordered his bodyguards, "Kill these priests of the LORD, for they are allies and conspirators with David! They knew he was running away from me, but they didn't tell me!" But Saul's men refused to kill the LORD's priests.
• 18. Then the king said to Doeg, "You do it." So Doeg turned on them and killed them, eighty-five priests in all, all still wearing their priestly tunics.
• 19. Then he went to Nob, the city of the priests, and killed the priests' families--men and women, children and babies, and all the cattle, donkeys, and sheep.
• 20. Only Abiathar, one of the sons of Ahimelech, escaped and fled to David.
• 21. When he told David that Saul had killed the priests of the LORD,
• 22. David exclaimed, "I knew it! When I saw Doeg there that day, I knew he would tell Saul. Now I have caused the death of all your father's family.
• 23. Stay here with me, and I will protect you with my own life, for the same person wants to kill us both."

1 Corinthians 3

• 1. Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn't talk to you as I would to mature Christians. I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life.
• 2. I had to feed you with milk and not with solid food, because you couldn't handle anything stronger. And you still aren't ready,
• 3. for you are still controlled by your own sinful desires. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn't that prove you are controlled by your own desires? You are acting like people who don't belong to the Lord.
• 4. When one of you says, "I am a follower of Paul," and another says, "I prefer Apollos," aren't you acting like those who are not Christians?
• 5. Who is Apollos, and who is Paul, that we should be the cause of such quarrels? Why, we're only servants. Through us God caused you to believe. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us.
• 6. My job was to plant the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God, not we, who made it grow.
• 7. The ones who do the planting or watering aren't important, but God is important because he is the one who makes the seed grow.
• 8. The one who plants and the one who waters work as a team with the same purpose. Yet they will be rewarded individually, according to their own hard work.
• 9. We work together as partners who belong to God. You are God's field, God's building--not ours.
• 10. Because of God's special favor to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful.
• 11. For no one can lay any other foundation than the one we already have--Jesus Christ.
• 12. Now anyone who builds on that foundation may use gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw.
• 13. But there is going to come a time of testing at the judgment day to see what kind of work each builder has done. Everyone's work will be put through the fire to see whether or not it keeps its value.
• 14. If the work survives the fire, that builder will receive a reward.
• 15. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builders themselves will be saved, but like someone escaping through a wall of flames.
• 16. Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
• 17. God will bring ruin upon anyone who ruins this temple. For God's temple is holy, and you Christians are that temple.
• 18. Stop fooling yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world's standards, you will have to become a fool so you can become wise by God's standards.
• 19. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, "God catches those who think they are wise in their own cleverness."
• 20. And again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are worthless."
• 21. So don't take pride in following a particular leader. Everything belongs to you:
• 22. Paul and Apollos and Peter; the whole world and life and death; the present and the future. Everything belongs to you,
• 23. and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Ezekiel 1

• 1. On July 31 of my thirtieth year, while I was with the Judean exiles beside the Kebar River in Babylon, the heavens were opened to me, and I saw visions of God.
• 2. This happened during the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's captivity.
• 3. The LORD gave a message to me, Ezekiel son of Buzi, a priest, there beside the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians, and I felt the hand of the LORD take hold of me.
• 4. As I looked, I saw a great storm coming toward me from the north, driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. The fire inside the cloud glowed like gleaming amber.
• 5. From the center of the cloud came four living beings that looked human,
• 6. except that each had four faces and two pairs of wings.
• 7. Their legs were straight like human legs, but their feet were split like calves' feet and shone like burnished bronze.
• 8. Beneath each of their wings I could see human hands.
• 9. The wings of each living being touched the wings of the two beings beside it. The living beings were able to fly in any direction without turning around.
• 10. Each had a human face in the front, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle at the back.
• 11. Each had two pairs of outstretched wings--one pair stretched out to touch the wings of the living beings on either side of it, and the other pair covered its body.
• 12. They went in whatever direction the spirit chose, and they moved straight forward in all directions without having to turn around.
• 13. The living beings looked like bright coals of fire or brilliant torches, and it looked as though lightning was flashing back and forth among them.
• 14. And the living beings darted to and fro like flashes of lightning.
• 15. As I looked at these beings, I saw four wheels on the ground beneath them, one wheel belonging to each.
• 16. The wheels sparkled as if made of chrysolite. All four wheels looked the same; each wheel had a second wheel turning crosswise within it.
• 17. The beings could move forward in any of the four directions they faced, without turning as they moved.
• 18. The rims of the four wheels were awesomely tall, and they were covered with eyes all around the edges.
• 19. When the four living beings moved, the wheels moved with them. When they flew upward, the wheels went up, too.
• 20. The spirit of the four living beings was in the wheels. So wherever the spirit went, the wheels and the living beings went, too.
• 21. When the living beings moved, the wheels moved. When the living beings stopped, the wheels stopped. When the living beings flew into the air, the wheels rose up. For the spirit of the living beings was in the wheels.
• 22. There was a surface spread out above them like the sky. It sparkled like crystal.
• 23. Beneath this surface the wings of each living being stretched out to touch the others' wings, and each had two wings covering its body.
• 24. As they flew their wings roared like waves crashing against the shore, or like the voice of the Almighty, or like the shouting of a mighty army. When they stopped, they let down their wings.
• 25. As they stood with their wings lowered, a voice spoke from beyond the crystal surface above them.
• 26. Above the surface over their heads was what looked like a throne made of blue sapphire. And high above this throne was a figure whose appearance was like that of a man.
• 27. From his waist up, he looked like gleaming amber, flickering like a fire. And from his waist down, he looked like a burning flame, shining with splendor.
• 28. All around him was a glowing halo, like a rainbow shining through the clouds. This was the way the glory of the LORD appeared to me. When I saw it, I fell face down in the dust, and I heard someone's voice speaking to me.

New Living Translation: 241 of 365 days.