1 Kings 14

• 1. At that time Jeroboam's son Abijah became very sick.
• 2. So Jeroboam told his wife, "Disguise yourself so that no one will recognize you as the queen. Then go to the prophet Ahijah at Shiloh--the man who told me I would become king.
• 3. Take him a gift of ten loaves of bread, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and ask him what will happen to the boy."
• 4. So Jeroboam's wife went to Ahijah's home at Shiloh. He was an old man now and could no longer see.
• 5. But the LORD had told Ahijah, "Jeroboam's wife will come here, pretending to be someone else. She will ask you about her son, for he is very sick. You must give her the answer that I give you."
• 6. So when Ahijah heard her footsteps at the door, he called out, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam! Why are you pretending to be someone else?" Then he told her, "I have bad news for you.
• 7. Give your husband, Jeroboam, this message from the LORD, the God of Israel: `I promoted you from the ranks of the common people and made you ruler over my people Israel.
• 8. I ripped the kingdom away from the family of David and gave it to you. But you have not been like my servant David, who obeyed my commands and followed me with all his heart and always did whatever I wanted him to do.
• 9. You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made other gods and have made me furious with your gold calves. And since you have turned your back on me,
• 10. I will bring disaster on your dynasty and kill all your sons, slave or free alike. I will burn up your royal dynasty as one burns up trash until it is all gone.
• 11. I, the LORD, vow that the members of your family who die in the city will be eaten by dogs, and those who die in the field will be eaten by vultures.'"
• 12. Then Ahijah said to Jeroboam's wife, "Go on home, and when you enter the city, the child will die.
• 13. All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only member of your family who will have a proper burial, for this child is the only good thing that the LORD, the God of Israel, sees in the entire family of Jeroboam.
• 14. And the LORD will raise up a king over Israel who will destroy the family of Jeroboam. This will happen today, even now!
• 15. Then the LORD will shake Israel like a reed whipped about in a stream. He will uproot the people of Israel from this good land that he gave their ancestors and will scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, for they have angered the LORD by worshiping Asherah poles.
• 16. He will abandon Israel because Jeroboam sinned and made all of Israel sin along with him."
• 17. So Jeroboam's wife returned to Tirzah, and the child died just as she walked through the door of her home.
• 18. When the people of Israel buried him, they mourned for him, as the LORD had promised through the prophet Ahijah.
• 19. The rest of the events of Jeroboam's reign, all his wars and how he ruled, are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Israel.
• 20. Jeroboam reigned in Israel twenty-two years. When Jeroboam died, his son Nadab became the next king.
• 21. Meanwhile, Rehoboam son of Solomon was king in Judah. He was forty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the LORD had chosen from among all the tribes of Israel as the place to honor his name. Rehoboam's mother was Naamah, an Ammonite woman.
• 22. During Rehoboam's reign, the people of Judah did what was evil in the LORD's sight, arousing his anger with their sin, for it was even worse than that of their ancestors.
• 23. They built pagan shrines and set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
• 24. There were even shrine prostitutes throughout the land. The people imitated the detestable practices of the pagan nations the LORD had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites.
• 25. In the fifth year of King Rehoboam's reign, King Shishak of Egypt came up and attacked Jerusalem.
• 26. He ransacked the Temple of the LORD and the royal palace and stole everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made.
• 27. Afterward Rehoboam made bronze shields as substitutes, and he entrusted them to the care of the palace guard officers.
• 28. Whenever the king went to the Temple of the LORD, the guards would carry them along and then return them to the guardroom.
• 29. The rest of the events in Rehoboam's reign and all his deeds are recorded in The Book of the History of the Kings of Judah.
• 30. There was constant war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam.
• 31. When Rehoboam died, he was buried among his ancestors in the City of David. His mother was Naamah, an Ammonite woman. Then his son Abijam became the next king.

Colossians 1

• 1. This letter is from Paul, chosen by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy.
• 2. It is written to God's holy people in the city of Colosse, who are faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. May God our Father give you grace and peace.
• 3. We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
• 4. for we have heard that you trust in Christ Jesus and that you love all of God's people.
• 5. You do this because you are looking forward to the joys of heaven--as you have been ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
• 6. This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is changing lives everywhere, just as it changed yours that very first day you heard and understood the truth about God's great kindness to sinners.
• 7. Epaphras, our much loved co-worker, was the one who brought you the Good News. He is Christ's faithful servant, and he is helping us in your place.
• 8. He is the one who told us about the great love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.
• 9. So we have continued praying for you ever since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you a complete understanding of what he wants to do in your lives, and we ask him to make you wise with spiritual wisdom.
• 10. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and you will continually do good, kind things for others. All the while, you will learn to know God better and better.
• 11. We also pray that you will be strengthened with his glorious power so that you will have all the patience and endurance you need. May you be filled with joy,
• 12. always thanking the Father, who has enabled you to share the inheritance that belongs to God's holy people, who live in the light.
• 13. For he has rescued us from the one who rules in the kingdom of darkness, and he has brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son.
• 14. God has purchased our freedom with his blood and has forgiven all our sins.
• 15. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before God made anything at all and is supreme over all creation.
• 16. Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see--kings, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities. Everything has been created through him and for him.
• 17. He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together.
• 18. Christ is the head of the church, which is his body. He is the first of all who will rise from the dead, so he is first in everything.
• 19. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ,
• 20. and by him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross.
• 21. This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions,
• 22. yet now he has brought you back as his friends. He has done this through his death on the cross in his own human body. As a result, he has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
• 23. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand in it firmly. Don't drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed by God to proclaim it.
• 24. I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am completing what remains of Christ's sufferings for his body, the church.
• 25. God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his message in all its fullness to you Gentiles.
• 26. This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to his own holy people.
• 27. For it has pleased God to tell his people that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. For this is the secret: Christ lives in you, and this is your assurance that you will share in his glory.
• 28. So everywhere we go, we tell everyone about Christ. We warn them and teach them with all the wisdom God has given us, for we want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ.
• 29. I work very hard at this, as I depend on Christ's mighty power that works within me.

Ezekiel 44

• 1. Then the man brought me back to the east gateway in the outer wall, but it was closed.
• 2. And the LORD said to me, "This gate must remain closed; it will never again be opened. No man will ever pass through it, for the LORD, the God of Israel, entered here. Thus, it must always remain shut.
• 3. Only the prince himself may sit inside this gateway to feast in the LORD's presence. But he may come and go only through the gateway's foyer."
• 4. Then the man brought me through the north gateway to the front of the Temple. I looked and saw that the glory of the LORD filled the Temple of the LORD, and I fell to the ground with my face in the dust.
• 5. And the LORD said to me, "Son of man, take careful notice; use your eyes and ears. Listen to everything I tell you about the regulations concerning the LORD's Temple. Take careful note of who may be admitted to the Temple and who is to be excluded from it.
• 6. And give these rebels, the people of Israel, this message from the Sovereign LORD: O people of Israel, enough of your disgusting sins!
• 7. You have brought uncircumcised foreigners into my sanctuary--people who have no heart for God. In this way, you profaned my Temple even as you offered me my food, the fat and blood of sacrifices. Thus, in addition to all your other disgusting sins, you have broken my covenant.
• 8. You have not kept the laws I gave you concerning these sacred rituals, for you have hired foreigners to take charge of my sanctuary.
• 9. "So this is what the Sovereign LORD says: No foreigners, including those who live among the people of Israel, will enter my sanctuary if they have not been circumcised and do not love the LORD.
• 10. And the men of the tribe of Levi who abandoned me when Israel strayed away from me to worship idols must bear the consequences of their unfaithfulness.
• 11. They may still be Temple guards and gatemen, and they may still slaughter the animals brought for burnt offerings and be present to help the people.
• 12. But they encouraged my people to worship other gods, causing Israel to fall into deep sin. So I have raised my hand and taken an oath that they must bear the consequences for their sins, says the Sovereign LORD.
• 13. They may not approach me to minister as priests. They may not touch any of my holy things or the holy offerings, for they must bear the shame of all the sins they have committed.
• 14. They are to serve as the Temple caretakers and are relegated to doing maintenance work and helping the people in a general way.
• 15. "However, the Levitical priests of the family of Zadok continued to minister faithfully in the Temple when Israel abandoned me for idols. These men will serve as my ministers. They will stand in my presence and offer the fat and blood of the sacrifices, says the Sovereign LORD.
• 16. They are the ones who will enter my sanctuary and approach my table to serve me. They are the ones who will fulfill all my requirements.
• 17. When they enter the gateway to the inner courtyard, they must wear only linen clothing. They must wear no wool while on duty in the inner courtyard or in the Temple itself.
• 18. They must wear linen turbans and linen undergarments. They must not wear anything that would cause them to perspire.
• 19. When they return to the outer courtyard where the people are, they must take off the clothes they wear while ministering to me. They must leave them in the sacred rooms and put on other clothes so they do not harm the people by transmitting holiness to them through this clothing.
• 20. "They must neither let their hair grow too long nor shave it off completely. Instead, they must trim it regularly.
• 21. The priests must never drink wine before entering the inner courtyard.
• 22. They may choose their wives only from among the virgins of Israel or the widows of the priests. They may not marry other widows or divorced women.
• 23. They will teach my people the difference between what is holy and what is common, what is ceremonially clean and unclean.
• 24. "They will serve as judges to resolve any disagreements among my people. Their decisions must be based on my regulations. And the priests themselves must obey my instructions and laws at all the sacred festivals, and they will see to it that the Sabbath is set apart as a holy day.
• 25. A priest must never defile himself by being in the presence of a dead person unless it is his father, mother, child, brother, or unmarried sister. In such cases it is permitted.
• 26. But such a priest can only return to his Temple duties after being ritually cleansed and then waiting for seven days.
• 27. The first day he returns to work and enters the inner courtyard and the sanctuary, he must offer a sin offering for himself, says the Sovereign LORD.
• 28. "As to property, the priests will not have any, for I alone am their inheritance.
• 29. Their food will come from the gifts and sacrifices brought to the Temple by the people--the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings. Whatever anyone sets apart for the LORD will belong to the priests.
• 30. The first of the ripe fruits and all the gifts brought to the LORD will go to the priests. The first samples of each grain harvest and the first of your flour must also be given to the priests so the LORD will bless your homes.
• 31. The priests may never eat meat from any bird or animal that dies a natural death or that dies after being attacked by another animal.

New Living Translation: 284 of 365 days.