1 Samuel 25

• 1. Now Samuel died, and all Israel gathered for his funeral. They buried him near his home at Ramah. Then David moved down to the wilderness of Maon.
• 2. There was a wealthy man from Maon who owned property near the village of Carmel. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and it was sheep-shearing time.
• 3. This man's name was Nabal, and his wife, Abigail, was a sensible and beautiful woman. But Nabal, a descendant of Caleb, was mean and dishonest in all his dealings.
• 4. When David heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep,
• 5. he sent ten of his young men to Carmel. He told them to deliver this message:
• 6. "Peace and prosperity to you, your family, and everything you own!
• 7. I am told that you are shearing your sheep and goats. While your shepherds stayed among us near Carmel, we never harmed them, and nothing was ever stolen from them.
• 8. Ask your own servants, and they will tell you this is true. So would you please be kind to us, since we have come at a time of celebration? Please give us any provisions you might have on hand."
• 9. David's young men gave this message to Nabal and waited for his reply.
• 10. "Who is this fellow David?" Nabal sneered. "Who does this son of Jesse think he is? There are lots of servants these days who run away from their masters.
• 11. Should I take my bread and water and the meat I've slaughtered for my shearers and give it to a band of outlaws who come from who knows where?"
• 12. So David's messengers returned and told him what Nabal had said.
• 13. "Get your swords!" was David's reply as he strapped on his own. Four hundred men started off with David, and two hundred remained behind to guard their equipment.
• 14. Meanwhile, one of Nabal's servants went to Abigail and told her, "David sent men from the wilderness to talk to our master, and he insulted them.
• 15. But David's men were very good to us, and we never suffered any harm from them. Nothing was stolen from us the whole time they were with us.
• 16. In fact, day and night they were like a wall of protection to us and the sheep.
• 17. You'd better think fast, for there is going to be trouble for our master and his whole family. He's so ill-tempered that no one can even talk to him!"
• 18. Abigail lost no time. She quickly gathered two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five dressed sheep, nearly a bushel of roasted grain, one hundred raisin cakes, and two hundred fig cakes. She packed them on donkeys and said to her servants,
• 19. "Go on ahead. I will follow you shortly." But she didn't tell her husband what she was doing.
• 20. As she was riding her donkey into a mountain ravine, she saw David and his men coming toward her.
• 21. David had just been saying, "A lot of good it did to help this fellow. We protected his flocks in the wilderness, and nothing he owned was lost or stolen. But he has repaid me evil for good.
• 22. May God deal with me severely if even one man of his household is still alive tomorrow morning!"
• 23. When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed low before him.
• 24. She fell at his feet and said, "I accept all blame in this matter, my lord. Please listen to what I have to say.
• 25. I know Nabal is a wicked and ill-tempered man; please don't pay any attention to him. He is a fool, just as his name suggests. But I never even saw the messengers you sent.
• 26. "Now, my lord, as surely as the LORD lives and you yourself live, since the LORD has kept you from murdering and taking vengeance into your own hands, let all your enemies be as cursed as Nabal is.
• 27. And here is a present I have brought to you and your young men.
• 28. Please forgive me if I have offended in any way. The LORD will surely reward you with a lasting dynasty, for you are fighting the LORD's battles. And you have not done wrong throughout your entire life.
• 29. "Even when you are chased by those who seek your life, you are safe in the care of the LORD your God, secure in his treasure pouch! But the lives of your enemies will disappear like stones shot from a sling!
• 30. When the LORD has done all he promised and has made you leader of Israel,
• 31. don't let this be a blemish on your record. Then you won't have to carry on your conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed and vengeance. And when the LORD has done these great things for you, please remember me!"
• 32. David replied to Abigail, "Praise the LORD, the God of Israel, who has sent you to meet me today!
• 33. Thank God for your good sense! Bless you for keeping me from murdering the man and carrying out vengeance with my own hands.
• 34. For I swear by the LORD, the God of Israel, who has kept me from hurting you, that if you had not hurried out to meet me, not one of Nabal's men would be alive tomorrow morning."
• 35. Then David accepted her gifts and told her, "Return home in peace. We will not kill your husband."
• 36. When Abigail arrived home, she found that Nabal had thrown a big party and was celebrating like a king. He was very drunk, so she didn't tell him anything about her meeting with David until the next morning.
• 37. The next morning when he was sober, she told him what had happened. As a result he had a stroke, and he lay on his bed paralyzed.
• 38. About ten days later, the LORD struck him and he died.
• 39. When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Praise the LORD, who has paid back Nabal and kept me from doing it myself. Nabal has received the punishment for his sin." Then David wasted no time in sending messengers to Abigail to ask her to become his wife.
• 40. When the messengers arrived at Carmel, they told Abigail, "David has sent us to ask if you will marry him."
• 41. She bowed low to the ground and responded, "Yes, I am even willing to become a slave to David's servants!"
• 42. Quickly getting ready, she took along five of her servant girls as attendants, mounted her donkey, and went with David's messengers. And so she became his wife.
• 43. David also married Ahinoam from Jezreel, making both of them his wives.
• 44. Saul, meanwhile, had given his daughter Michal, David's wife, to a man from Gallim named Palti son of Laish.

1 Corinthians 6

• 1. When you have something against another Christian, why do you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter, instead of taking it to other Christians to decide who is right?
• 2. Don't you know that someday we Christians are going to judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world, can't you decide these little things among yourselves?
• 3. Don't you realize that we Christians will judge angels? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disagreements here on earth.
• 4. If you have legal disputes about such matters, why do you go to outside judges who are not respected by the church?
• 5. I am saying this to shame you. Isn't there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these arguments?
• 6. But instead, one Christian sues another--right in front of unbelievers!
• 7. To have such lawsuits at all is a real defeat for you. Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that? Why not let yourselves be cheated?
• 8. But instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your own Christian brothers and sisters.
• 9. Don't you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, who are idol worshipers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals,
• 10. thieves, greedy people, drunkards, abusers, and swindlers--none of these will have a share in the Kingdom of God.
• 11. There was a time when some of you were just like that, but now your sins have been washed away, and you have been set apart for God. You have been made right with God because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you.
• 12. You may say, "I am allowed to do anything." But I reply, "Not everything is good for you." And even though "I am allowed to do anything," I must not become a slave to anything.
• 13. You say, "Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food." This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them. But our bodies were not made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies.
• 14. And God will raise our bodies from the dead by his marvelous power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead.
• 15. Don't you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which belongs to Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never!
• 16. And don't you know that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, "The two are united into one."
• 17. But the person who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
• 18. Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.
• 19. Or don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself,
• 20. for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

Ezekiel 4

• 1. "And now, son of man, take a large brick and set it down in front of you. Then draw a map of the city of Jerusalem on it.
• 2. Build siege ramps against the city walls. Surround it with enemy camps and battering rams.
• 3. Then take an iron griddle and place it between you and the city. Turn toward it and demonstrate how the enemy will attack Jerusalem. This will be a warning to the people of Israel.
• 4. "Now lie on your left side and place the sins of Israel on yourself. You are to bear their sins for the number of days you lie there on your side.
• 5. You will bear Israel's sins for 390 days--one day for each year of their sin.
• 6. After that, turn over and lie on your right side for 40 days--one day for each year of Judah's sin.
• 7. "Meanwhile, continue your demonstration of the siege of Jerusalem. Lie there with your arm bared and prophesy her destruction.
• 8. I will tie you up with ropes so you won't be able to turn from side to side until the days of your siege have been completed.
• 9. "Now go and get some wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and mix them together in a storage jar. Use this food to make bread for yourself during the 390 days you will be lying on your side.
• 10. Ration this out to yourself, eight ounces of food for each day, and eat it at set times.
• 11. Then measure out a jar of water for each day, and drink it at set times.
• 12. Each day prepare your bread as you would barley cakes. While all the people are watching, bake it over a fire using dried human dung as fuel and then eat the bread.
• 13. For this is what the LORD says: Israel will eat defiled bread in the Gentile lands, where I will banish them!"
• 14. Then I said, "O Sovereign LORD, must I be defiled by using human dung? For I have never been defiled before. From the time I was a child until now I have never eaten any animal that died of sickness or that I found dead. And I have never eaten any of the animals that our laws forbid."
• 15. "All right," the LORD said. "You may bake your bread with cow dung instead of human dung."
• 16. Then he told me, "Son of man, I will cause food to be very scarce in Jerusalem. It will be weighed out with great care and eaten fearfully. The water will be portioned out drop by drop, and the people will drink it with dismay.
• 17. Food and water will be so scarce that the people will look at one another in terror, and they will waste away under their punishment.

New Living Translation: 244 of 365 days.