2 Kings 19

• 1. When King Hezekiah heard their report, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the Temple of the LORD to pray.
• 2. And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the court secretary, and the leading priests, all dressed in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz.
• 3. They told him, "This is what King Hezekiah says: This is a day of trouble, insult, and disgrace. It is like when a child is ready to be born, but the mother has no strength to deliver it.
• 4. But perhaps the LORD your God has heard the Assyrian representative defying the living God and will punish him for his words. Oh, pray for those of us who are left!"
• 5. After King Hezekiah's officials delivered the king's message to Isaiah,
• 6. the prophet replied, "Say to your master, `This is what the LORD says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king's messengers.
• 7. Listen! I myself will move against him, and the king will receive a report from Assyria telling him that he is needed at home. Then I will make him want to return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.'"
• 8. Meanwhile, the Assyrian representative left Jerusalem and went to consult his king, who had left Lachish and was attacking Libnah.
• 9. Soon afterward King Sennacherib received word that King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was leading an army to fight against him. Before leaving to meet the attack, he sent this message back to Hezekiah in Jerusalem:
• 10. "This message is for King Hezekiah of Judah. Don't let this God you trust deceive you with promises that Jerusalem will not be captured by the king of Assyria.
• 11. You know perfectly well what the kings of Assyria have done wherever they have gone. They have crushed everyone who stood in their way! Why should you be any different?
• 12. Have the gods of other nations rescued them--such nations as Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Tel-assar? The former kings of Assyria destroyed them all!
• 13. What happened to the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad? What happened to the kings of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?"
• 14. After Hezekiah received the letter and read it, he went up to the LORD's Temple and spread it out before the LORD.
• 15. And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the LORD: "O LORD, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth.
• 16. Listen to me, O LORD, and hear! Open your eyes, O LORD, and see! Listen to Sennacherib's words of defiance against the living God.
• 17. "It is true, LORD, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations, just as the message says.
• 18. And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all--only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands.
• 19. Now, O LORD our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O LORD, are God."
• 20. Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I have heard your prayer about King Sennacherib of Assyria.
• 21. This is the message that the LORD has spoken against him: `The virgin daughter of Zion despises you and laughs at you. The daughter of Jerusalem scoffs and shakes her head as you flee.
• 22. `Whom do you think you have been insulting and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look in such proud condescension? It was the Holy One of Israel!
• 23. By your messengers you have mocked the Lord. You have said, "With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains--yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars and its choicest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest corners and explored its deepest forests.
• 24. I have dug wells in many a foreign land and refreshed myself with their water. I even stopped up the rivers of Egypt so that my armies could go across!"
• 25. `But have you not heard? It was I, the LORD, who decided this long ago. Long ago I planned what I am now causing to happen, that you should crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.
• 26. That is why their people have so little power and are such easy prey for you. They are as helpless as the grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, easily scorched by the sun.
• 27. `But I know you well--your comings and goings and all you do. I know the way you have raged against me.
• 28. And because of your arrogance against me, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your mouth. I will make you return by the road on which you came.'"
• 29. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Here is the proof that the LORD will protect this city from Assyria's king. This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit.
• 30. And you who are left in Judah, who have escaped the ravages of the siege, will take root again in your own soil, and you will flourish and multiply.
• 31. For a remnant of my people will spread out from Jerusalem, a group of survivors from Mount Zion. The passion of the LORD Almighty will make this happen!
• 32. "And this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: His armies will not enter Jerusalem to shoot their arrows. They will not march outside its gates with their shields and build banks of earth against its walls.
• 33. The king will return to his own country by the road on which he came. He will not enter this city, says the LORD.
• 34. For my own honor and for the sake of my servant David, I will defend it."
• 35. That night the angel of the LORD went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian troops. When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere.
• 36. Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there.
• 37. One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. They then escaped to the land of Ararat, and another son, Esarhaddon, became the next king of Assyria.

Hebrews 1

• 1. Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets.
• 2. But now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he made the universe and everything in it.
• 3. The Son reflects God's own glory, and everything about him represents God exactly. He sustains the universe by the mighty power of his command. After he died to cleanse us from the stain of sin, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God of heaven.
• 4. This shows that God's Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is far greater than their names.
• 5. For God never said to any angel what he said to Jesus: "You are my Son. Today I have become your Father. "And again God said, "I will be his Father, and he will be my Son."
• 6. And then, when he presented his honored Son to the world, God said, "Let all the angels of God worship him."
• 7. God calls his angels "messengers swift as the wind, and servants made of flaming fire."
• 8. But to his Son he says, "Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal power is expressed in righteousness.
• 9. You love what is right and hate what is wrong. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you, pouring out the oil of joy on you more than on anyone else."
• 10. And, "Lord, in the beginning you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
• 11. Even they will perish, but you remain forever. They will wear out like old clothing.
• 12. You will roll them up like an old coat. They will fade away like old clothing. But you are always the same; you will never grow old."
• 13. And God never said to an angel, as he did to his Son, "Sit in honor at my right hand until I humble your enemies, making them a footstool under your feet."
• 14. But angels are only servants. They are spirits sent from God to care for those who will receive salvation.

Hosea 12

• 1. The people of Israel feed on the wind; they chase after the east wind all day long. They multiply lies and violence; they make alliances with Assyria and cut deals with the Egyptians.
• 2. Now the LORD is bringing a lawsuit against Judah. He is about to punish Jacob for all his deceitful ways.
• 3. Before Jacob was born, he struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God.
• 4. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won. He wept and pleaded for a blessing from him. There at Bethel he met God face to face, and God spoke to him--
• 5. the LORD God Almighty, the LORD is his name!
• 6. So now, come back to your God! Act on the principles of love and justice, and always live in confident dependence on your God.
• 7. But no, the people are like crafty merchants selling from dishonest scales--they love to cheat.
• 8. Israel boasts, "I am rich, and I've gotten it all by myself! No one can say I got it by cheating! My record is spotless!"
• 9. "I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from your slavery in Egypt. And I will make you live in tents again, as you do each year when you celebrate the Festival of Shelters.
• 10. I sent my prophets to warn you with many visions and parables."
• 11. But Gilead is filled with sinners who worship idols. And in Gilgal, too, they sacrifice bulls; their altars are lined up like the heaps of stone along the edges of a plowed field.
• 12. Jacob fled to the land of Aram and earned a wife by tending sheep.
• 13. Then the LORD led Jacob's descendants, the Israelites, out of Egypt by a prophet, who guided and protected them.
• 14. But the people of Israel have bitterly provoked the LORD, so their Lord will now sentence them to death in payment for their sins.

New Living Translation: 310 of 365 days.