2 Samuel 24

• 1. Once again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he caused David to harm them by taking a census. "Go and count the people of Israel and Judah," the LORD told him.
• 2. So the king said to Joab, the commander of his army, "Take a census of all the people in the land--from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south--so that I may know how many people there are."
• 3. But Joab replied to the king, "May the LORD your God let you live until there are a hundred times as many people in your kingdom as there are now! But why do you want to do this?"
• 4. But the king insisted that they take the census, so Joab and his officers went out to count the people of Israel.
• 5. First they crossed the Jordan and camped at Aroer, south of the town in the valley, in the direction of Gad. Then they went on to Jazer,
• 6. then to Gilead in the land of Tahtim-hodshi and to Dan-jaan and around to Sidon.
• 7. Then they came to the stronghold of Tyre, and all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites. Finally, they went south to Judah as far as Beersheba.
• 8. Having gone through the entire land, they completed their task in nine months and twenty days and then returned to Jerusalem.
• 9. Joab reported the number of people to the king. There were 800,000 men of military age in Israel and 500,000 in Judah.
• 10. But after he had taken the census, David's conscience began to bother him. And he said to the LORD, "I have sinned greatly and shouldn't have taken the census. Please forgive me, LORD, for doing this foolish thing."
• 11. The next morning the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, who was David's seer. This was the message:
• 12. "Go and say to David, `This is what the LORD says: I will give you three choices. Choose one of these punishments, and I will do it.'"
• 13. So Gad came to David and asked him, "Will you choose three years of famine throughout the land, three months of fleeing from your enemies, or three days of severe plague throughout your land? Think this over and let me know what answer to give the LORD."
• 14. "This is a desperate situation!" David replied to Gad. "But let us fall into the hands of the LORD, for his mercy is great. Do not let me fall into human hands."
• 15. So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel that morning, and it lasted for three days. Seventy thousand people died throughout the nation.
• 16. But as the death angel was preparing to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD relented and said to the angel, "Stop! That is enough!" At that moment the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
• 17. When David saw the angel, he said to the LORD, "I am the one who has sinned and done wrong! But these people are innocent--what have they done? Let your anger fall against me and my family."
• 18. That day Gad came to David and said to him, "Go and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite."
• 19. So David went to do what the LORD had commanded him.
• 20. When Araunah saw the king and his men coming toward him, he came forward and bowed before the king with his face to the ground.
• 21. "Why have you come, my lord?" Araunah asked. And David replied, "I have come to buy your threshing floor and to build an altar to the LORD there, so that the LORD will stop the plague."
• 22. "Take it, my lord, and use it as you wish," Araunah said to David. "Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and you can use the threshing tools and ox yokes for wood to build a fire on the altar.
• 23. I will give it all to you, and may the LORD your God accept your sacrifice."
• 24. But the king replied to Araunah, "No, I insist on buying it, for I cannot present burnt offerings to the LORD my God that have cost me nothing." So David paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen.
• 25. David built an altar there to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the LORD answered his prayer, and the plague was stopped.

Galatians 4

• 1. Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves great wealth for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had.
• 2. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set.
• 3. And that's the way it was with us before Christ came. We were slaves to the spiritual powers of this world.
• 4. But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
• 5. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
• 6. And because you Gentiles have become his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, and now you can call God your dear Father.
• 7. Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you.
• 8. Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist.
• 9. And now that you have found God (or should I say, now that God has found you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual powers of this world?
• 10. You are trying to find favor with God by what you do or don't do on certain days or months or seasons or years.
• 11. I fear for you. I am afraid that all my hard work for you was worth nothing.
• 12. Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like you Gentiles were--free from the law. You did not mistreat me when I first preached to you.
• 13. Surely you remember that I was sick when I first brought you the Good News of Christ.
• 14. But even though my sickness was revolting to you, you did not reject me and turn me away. No, you took me in and cared for me as though I were an angel from God or even Christ Jesus himself.
• 15. Where is that joyful spirit we felt together then? In those days, I know you would gladly have taken out your own eyes and given them to me if it had been possible.
• 16. Have I now become your enemy because I am telling you the truth?
• 17. Those false teachers who are so anxious to win your favor are not doing it for your good. They are trying to shut you off from me so that you will pay more attention to them.
• 18. Now it's wonderful if you are eager to do good, and especially when I am not with you.
• 19. But oh, my dear children! I feel as if I am going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives.
• 20. How I wish I were there with you right now, so that I could be more gentle with you. But at this distance I frankly don't know what else to do.
• 21. Listen to me, you who want to live under the law. Do you know what the law really says?
• 22. The Scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave-wife and one from his freeborn wife.
• 23. The son of the slave-wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise. But the son of the freeborn wife was born as God's own fulfillment of his promise.
• 24. Now these two women serve as an illustration of God's two covenants. Hagar, the slave-wife, represents Mount Sinai where people first became enslaved to the law.
• 25. And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery.
• 26. But Sarah, the free woman, represents the heavenly Jerusalem. And she is our mother.
• 27. That is what Isaiah meant when he prophesied, "Rejoice, O childless woman! Break forth into loud and joyful song, even though you never gave birth to a child. For the woman who could bear no children now has more than all the other women!"
• 28. And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac.
• 29. And we who are born of the Holy Spirit are persecuted by those who want us to keep the law, just as Isaac, the child of promise, was persecuted by Ishmael, the son of the slave-wife.
• 30. But what do the Scriptures say about that? "Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share the family inheritance with the free woman's son."
• 31. So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, obligated to the law. We are children of the free woman, acceptable to God because of our faith.

Ezekiel 31

• 1. On June 21, during the eleventh year of King Jehoiachin's captivity, this message came to me from the LORD:
• 2. "Son of man, give this message to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and all his people: To whom would you compare your greatness?
• 3. You are as Assyria was--a great and mighty nation. Assyria, too, was once like a cedar of Lebanon, full of thick branches that cast deep forest shade with its top high among the clouds.
• 4. Deep springs watered it and helped it to grow tall and luxuriant. The water was so abundant that there was enough for all the trees nearby.
• 5. This great tree towered above all the other trees around it. It prospered and grew long thick branches because of all the water at its roots.
• 6. The birds nested in its branches, and in its shade all the wild animals gave birth to their young. All the great nations of the world lived in its shadow.
• 7. It was strong and beautiful, for its roots went deep into abundant water.
• 8. This tree became taller than any of the other cedars in the garden of God. No cypress had branches equal to it; no plane tree had boughs to compare. No tree in the garden of God came close to it in beauty.
• 9. Because of the magnificence I gave this tree, it was the envy of all the other trees of Eden, the garden of God.
• 10. "Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because it became proud and arrogant, and because it set itself so high above the others, reaching to the clouds,
• 11. I handed it over to a mighty nation that destroyed it as its wickedness deserved. I myself discarded it.
• 12. A foreign army--the terror of the nations--cut it down and left it fallen on the ground. Its branches were scattered across the mountains and valleys and ravines of the land. All those who lived beneath its shadow went away and left it lying there.
• 13. The birds roosted on its fallen trunk, and the wild animals lay among its branches.
• 14. Let no other nation proudly exult in its own prosperity, though it be higher than the clouds, for all are doomed. They will land in the pit along with all the proud people of the world.
• 15. "This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When Assyria went down into the grave, I made the deep places mourn, and I restrained the mighty waters. I clothed Lebanon in black and caused the trees of the field to wilt.
• 16. I made the nations shake with fear at the sound of its fall, for I sent it down to the grave with all the others like it. And all the other proud trees of Eden, the most beautiful and the best of Lebanon, the ones whose roots went deep into the water, were relieved to find it there with them in the pit.
• 17. Its allies, too, were all destroyed and had passed away. They had gone down to the grave--all those nations that had lived in its shade.
• 18. "O Egypt, to which of the trees of Eden will you compare your strength and glory? You, too, will be brought down to the pit with all these other nations. You will lie there among the outcasts who have died by the sword. This will be the fate of Pharaoh and all his teeming hordes. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken!"

New Living Translation: 271 of 365 days.