Exodus 23

• 1. "Do not pass along false reports. Do not cooperate with evil people by telling lies on the witness stand.
• 2. "Do not join a crowd that intends to do evil. When you are on the witness stand, do not be swayed in your testimony by the opinion of the majority.
• 3. And do not slant your testimony in favor of a person just because that person is poor.
• 4. "If you come upon your enemy's ox or donkey that has strayed away, take it back to its owner.
• 5. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you struggling beneath a heavy load, do not walk by. Instead, stop and offer to help.
• 6. "Do not twist justice against people simply because they are poor.
• 7. "Keep far away from falsely charging anyone with evil. Never put an innocent or honest person to death. I will not allow anyone guilty of this to go free.
• 8. "Take no bribes, for a bribe makes you ignore something that you clearly see. A bribe always hurts the cause of the person who is in the right.
• 9. "Do not oppress the foreigners living among you. You know what it is like to be a foreigner. Remember your own experience in the land of Egypt.
• 10. "Plant and harvest your crops for six years,
• 11. but let the land rest and lie fallow during the seventh year. Then let the poor among you harvest any volunteer crop that may come up. Leave the rest for the animals to eat. The same applies to your vineyards and olive groves.
• 12. "Work for six days, and rest on the seventh. This will give your ox and your donkey a chance to rest. It will also allow the people of your household, including your slaves and visitors, to be refreshed.
• 13. "Be sure to obey all my instructions. And remember, never pray to or swear by any other gods. Do not even mention their names.
• 14. "Each year you must celebrate three festivals in my honor.
• 15. The first is the Festival of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast, just as I commanded you before. This festival will be an annual event at the appointed time in early spring, for that is the anniversary of your exodus from Egypt. Everyone must bring me a sacrifice at that time.
• 16. You must also celebrate the Festival of Harvest, when you bring me the first crops of your harvest. Finally, you are to celebrate the Festival of the Final Harvest at the end of the harvest season.
• 17. At these three times each year, every man in Israel must appear before the Sovereign LORD.
• 18. "Sacrificial blood must never be offered together with bread that has yeast in it. And no sacrificial fat may be left unoffered until the next morning.
• 19. "As you harvest each of your crops, bring me a choice sample of the first day's harvest. It must be offered to the LORD your God. "You must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.
• 20. "See, I am sending my angel before you to lead you safely to the land I have prepared for you.
• 21. Pay attention to him, and obey all of his instructions. Do not rebel against him, for he will not forgive your sins. He is my representative--he bears my name.
• 22. But if you are careful to obey him, following all my instructions, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will oppose those who oppose you.
• 23. For my angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, so you may live there. And I will destroy them.
• 24. Do not worship the gods of these other nations or serve them in any way, and never follow their evil example. Instead, you must utterly conquer them and break down their shameful idols.
• 25. "You must serve only the LORD your God. If you do, I will bless you with food and water, and I will keep you healthy.
• 26. There will be no miscarriages or infertility among your people, and I will give you long, full lives.
• 27. "I will send my terror upon all the people whose lands you invade, and they will panic before you.
• 28. I will send hornets ahead of you to drive out the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites.
• 29. But I will not do this all in one year because the land would become a wilderness, and the wild animals would become too many to control.
• 30. I will drive them out a little at a time until your population has increased enough to fill the land.
• 31. And I will fix your boundaries from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the southern deserts to the Euphrates River. I will help you defeat the people now living in the land, and you will drive them out ahead of you.
• 32. "Make no treaties with them and have nothing to do with their gods.
• 33. Do not even let them live among you! If you do, they will infect you with their sin of idol worship, and that would be disastrous for you."

John 3

• 1. After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee,
• 2. came to speak with Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are proof enough that God is with you."
• 3. Jesus replied, "I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God."
• 4. "What do you mean?" exclaimed Nicodemus. "How can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again?"
• 5. Jesus replied, "The truth is, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.
• 6. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven.
• 7. So don't be surprised at my statement that you must be born again.
• 8. Just as you can hear the wind but can't tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can't explain how people are born of the Spirit."
• 9. "What do you mean?" Nicodemus asked.
• 10. Jesus replied, "You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don't understand these things?
• 11. I assure you, I am telling you what we know and have seen, and yet you won't believe us.
• 12. But if you don't even believe me when I tell you about things that happen here on earth, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven?
• 13. For only I, the Son of Man, have come to earth and will return to heaven again.
• 14. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so I, the Son of Man, must be lifted up on a pole,
• 15. so that everyone who believes in me will have eternal life.
• 16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
• 17. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
• 18. "There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him. But those who do not trust him have already been judged for not believing in the only Son of God.
• 19. Their judgment is based on this fact: The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.
• 20. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished.
• 21. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants."
• 22. Afterward Jesus and his disciples left Jerusalem, but they stayed in Judea for a while and baptized there.
• 23. At this time John the Baptist was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there and people kept coming to him for baptism.
• 24. This was before John was put into prison.
• 25. At that time a certain Jew began an argument with John's disciples over ceremonial cleansing.
• 26. John's disciples came to him and said, "Teacher, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you said was the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going over there instead of coming here to us."
• 27. John replied, "God in heaven appoints each person's work.
• 28. You yourselves know how plainly I told you that I am not the Messiah. I am here to prepare the way for him--that is all.
• 29. The bride will go where the bridegroom is. A bridegroom's friend rejoices with him. I am the bridegroom's friend, and I am filled with joy at his success.
• 30. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
• 31. "He has come from above and is greater than anyone else. I am of the earth, and my understanding is limited to the things of earth, but he has come from heaven.
• 32. He tells what he has seen and heard, but how few believe what he tells them!
• 33. Those who believe him discover that God is true.
• 34. For he is sent by God. He speaks God's words, for God's Spirit is upon him without measure or limit.
• 35. The Father loves his Son, and he has given him authority over everything.
• 36. And all who believe in God's Son have eternal life. Those who don't obey the Son will never experience eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon them."

Job 42

• 1. Then Job replied to the LORD:
• 2. "I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you.
• 3. You ask, `Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?' It is I. And I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me.
• 4. "You said, `Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.'
• 5. "I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.
• 6. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance."
• 7. After the LORD had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: "I am angry with you and with your two friends, for you have not been right in what you said about me, as my servant Job was.
• 8. Now take seven young bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer on your behalf. I will not treat you as you deserve, for you have not been right in what you said about me, as my servant Job was."
• 9. So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite did as the LORD commanded them, and the LORD accepted Job's prayer.
• 10. When Job prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes. In fact, the LORD gave him twice as much as before!
• 11. Then all his brothers, sisters, and former friends came and feasted with him in his home. And they consoled him and comforted him because of all the trials the LORD had brought against him. And each of them brought him a gift of money and a gold ring.
• 12. So the LORD blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning. For now he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand teams of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys.
• 13. He also gave Job seven more sons and three more daughters.
• 14. He named his first daughter Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch.
• 15. In all the land there were no other women as lovely as the daughters of Job. And their father put them into his will along with their brothers.
• 16. Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children and grandchildren.
• 17. Then he died, an old man who had lived a long, good life.

New Living Translation: 72 of 365 days.