Genesis 50

• 1. Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him.
• 2. Then Joseph told his morticians to embalm the body.
• 3. The embalming process took forty days, and there was a period of national mourning for seventy days.
• 4. When the period of mourning was over, Joseph approached Pharaoh's advisers and asked them to speak to Pharaoh on his behalf.
• 5. He told them, "Tell Pharaoh that my father made me swear an oath. He said to me, `I am about to die; take my body back to the land of Canaan, and bury me in our family's burial cave.' Now I need to go and bury my father. After his burial is complete, I will return without delay."
• 6. Pharaoh agreed to Joseph's request. "Go and bury your father, as you promised," he said.
• 7. So Joseph went, with a great number of Pharaoh's counselors and advisers--all the senior officers of Egypt.
• 8. Joseph also took his brothers and the entire household of Jacob. But they left their little children and flocks and herds in the land of Goshen.
• 9. So a great number of chariots, cavalry, and people accompanied Joseph.
• 10. When they arrived at the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan River, they held a very great and solemn funeral, with a seven-day period of mourning for Joseph's father.
• 11. The local residents, the Canaanites, renamed the place Abel-mizraim, for they said, "This is a place of very deep mourning for these Egyptians."
• 12. So Jacob's sons did as he had commanded them.
• 13. They carried his body to the land of Canaan and buried it there in the cave of Machpelah. This is the cave that Abraham had bought for a permanent burial place in the field of Ephron the Hittite, near Mamre.
• 14. Then Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to his father's funeral.
• 15. But now that their father was dead, Joseph's brothers became afraid. "Now Joseph will pay us back for all the evil we did to him," they said.
• 16. So they sent this message to Joseph: "Before your father died, he instructed us
• 17. to say to you: `Forgive your brothers for the great evil they did to you.' So we, the servants of the God of your father, beg you to forgive us." When Joseph received the message, he broke down and wept.
• 18. Then his brothers came and bowed low before him. "We are your slaves," they said.
• 19. But Joseph told them, "Don't be afraid of me. Am I God, to judge and punish you?
• 20. As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil. He brought me to the high position I have today so I could save the lives of many people.
• 21. No, don't be afraid. Indeed, I myself will take care of you and your families." And he spoke very kindly to them, reassuring them.
• 22. So Joseph and his brothers and their families continued to live in Egypt. Joseph was 110 years old when he died.
• 23. He lived to see three generations of descendants of his son Ephraim and the children of Manasseh's son Makir, who were treated as if they were his own.
• 24. "Soon I will die," Joseph told his brothers, "but God will surely come for you, to lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring you back to the land he vowed to give to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
• 25. Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said, "When God comes to lead us back to Canaan, you must take my body back with you."
• 26. So Joseph died at the age of 110. They embalmed him, and his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

Luke 5

• 1. One day as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God.
• 2. He noticed two empty boats at the water's edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets.
• 3. Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.
• 4. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Now go out where it is deeper and let down your nets, and you will catch many fish."
• 5. "Master," Simon replied, "we worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing. But if you say so, we'll try again."
• 6. And this time their nets were so full they began to tear!
• 7. A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.
• 8. When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, "Oh, Lord, please leave me--I'm too much of a sinner to be around you."
• 9. For he was awestruck by the size of their catch, as were the others with him.
• 10. His partners, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also amazed. Jesus replied to Simon, "Don't be afraid! From now on you'll be fishing for people!"
• 11. And as soon as they landed, they left everything and followed Jesus.
• 12. In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he fell to the ground, face down in the dust, begging to be healed. "Lord," he said, "if you want to, you can make me well again."
• 13. Jesus reached out and touched the man. "I want to," he said. "Be healed!" And instantly the leprosy disappeared.
• 14. Then Jesus instructed him not to tell anyone what had happened. He said, "Go right to the priest and let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy, so everyone will have proof of your healing."
• 15. Yet despite Jesus' instructions, the report of his power spread even faster, and vast crowds came to hear him preach and to be healed of their diseases.
• 16. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.
• 17. One day while Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of religious law were sitting nearby. (It seemed that these men showed up from every village in all Galilee and Judea, as well as from Jerusalem.) And the Lord's healing power was strongly with Jesus.
• 18. Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a sleeping mat. They tried to push through the crowd to Jesus,
• 19. but they couldn't reach him. So they went up to the roof, took off some tiles, and lowered the sick man down into the crowd, still on his mat, right in front of Jesus.
• 20. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
• 21. "Who does this man think he is?" the Pharisees and teachers of religious law said to each other. "This is blasphemy! Who but God can forgive sins?"
• 22. Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, "Why do you think this is blasphemy?
• 23. Is it easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven' or 'Get up and walk'?
• 24. I will prove that I, the Son of Man, have the authority on earth to forgive sins." Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, "Stand up, take your mat, and go on home, because you are healed!"
• 25. And immediately, as everyone watched, the man jumped to his feet, picked up his mat, and went home praising God.
• 26. Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe. And they praised God, saying over and over again, "We have seen amazing things today."
• 27. Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax-collection booth. "Come, be my disciple!" Jesus said to him.
• 28. So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.
• 29. Soon Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi's fellow tax collectors and other guests were there.
• 30. But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus' disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with such scum?"
• 31. Jesus answered them, "Healthy people don't need a doctor--sick people do.
• 32. I have come to call sinners to turn from their sins, not to spend my time with those who think they are already good enough."
• 33. The religious leaders complained that Jesus' disciples were feasting instead of fasting. "John the Baptist's disciples always fast and pray," they declared, "and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are yours always feasting?"
• 34. Jesus asked, "Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom?
• 35. Someday he will be taken away from them, and then they will fast."
• 36. Then Jesus gave them this illustration: "No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be torn, and the patch wouldn't even match the old garment.
• 37. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The new wine would burst the old skins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins.
• 38. New wine must be put into new wineskins.
• 39. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the fresh and the new. 'The old is better,' they say."

Job 18

• 1. Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:
• 2. "How long before you stop talking? Speak sense if you want us to answer!
• 3. Do you think we are cattle? Do you think we have no intelligence?
• 4. You may tear your hair out in anger, but will that cause the earth to be abandoned? Will it make rocks fall from a cliff?
• 5. "The truth remains that the light of the wicked will be snuffed out. The sparks of their fire will not glow.
• 6. The light in their tent will grow dark. The lamp hanging above them will be quenched.
• 7. The confident stride of the wicked will be shortened. Their own schemes will be their downfall.
• 8. "The wicked walk into a net. They fall into a pit that's been dug in the path.
• 9. A trap grabs them by the heel. A noose tightens around them.
• 10. A snare lies hidden in the ground. A rope lies coiled on their path.
• 11. "Terrors surround the wicked and trouble them at every step.
• 12. Their vigor is depleted by hunger, and calamity waits for them to stumble.
• 13. Disease eats their skin; death devours their limbs.
• 14. They are torn from the security of their tent, and they are brought down to the king of terrors.
• 15. The home of the wicked will disappear beneath a fiery barrage of burning sulfur.
• 16. Their roots will dry up, and their branches will wither.
• 17. All memory of their existence will perish from the earth. No one will remember them.
• 18. They will be thrust from light into darkness, driven from the world.
• 19. They will have neither children nor grandchildren, nor any survivor in their home country.
• 20. People in the west are appalled at their fate; people in the east are horrified.
• 21. They will say, `This was the home of a wicked person, the place of one who rejected God.'"

New Living Translation: 49 of 365 days.