Daily Devotions · August 15
Reading for August 15
Read the whole Bible in a year, a few chapters a day.
Jeremiah 18–20 · Psalm 93 · John 17
Jeremiah 18–20 · Psalm 93 · John 17, Berean Standard Bible
Jeremiah 18
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Go down at once to the potter’s house, and there I will give you My message.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6 “O house of Israel, declares the LORD, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay? Just like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. 7 At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed. 8 But if that nation I warned turns from its evil, then I will relent of the disaster I had planned to bring. 9 And if at another time I announce that I will build up and establish a nation or kingdom, 10 and if it does evil in My sight and does not listen to My voice, then I will relent of the good I had intended for it. 11 Now therefore, tell the men of Judah and the residents of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I am planning a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways, and correct your ways and deeds.’ 12 But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’” 13 Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Inquire among the nations: Who has ever heard things like these? Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing. 14 Does the snow of Lebanon ever leave its rocky slopes? Or do its cool waters flowing from a distance ever run dry? 15 Yet My people have forgotten Me. They burn incense to worthless idols that make them stumble in their ways, leaving the ancient roads to walk on rutted bypaths instead of on the highway. 16 They have made their land a desolation, a perpetual object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and shake their heads. 17 I will scatter them before the enemy like the east wind. I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their calamity.” 18 Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the prophet. Come, let us denounce him and pay no heed to any of his words.” 19 Attend to me, O LORD. Hear what my accusers are saying! 20 Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You to speak good on their behalf, to turn Your wrath from them. 21 Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle. 22 Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring raiders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet. 23 But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me. Do not wipe out their guilt or blot out their sin from Your sight. Let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.
Jeremiah 19
This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests, 2 and go out to the Valley of Ben-hinnom near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. Proclaim there the words I speak to you, 3 saying, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on this place that the ears of all who hear of it will ring, 4 because they have abandoned Me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in this place to other gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have ever known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5 They have built high places to Baal on which to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I never commanded or mentioned, nor did it even enter My mind. 6 So behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the Valley of Ben-hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. 7 And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, by the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. 8 I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds. 9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’ 10 Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you, 11 and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar that can never again be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them. 12 This is what I will do to this place and to its residents, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth. 13 The houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled like that place, Topheth—all the houses on whose rooftops they burned incense to all the host of heaven and poured out drink offerings to other gods.” 14 Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and proclaimed to all the people, 15 “This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I am about to bring on this city and on all the villages around it every disaster I have pronounced against them, because they have stiffened their necks so as not to heed My words.’”
Jeremiah 20
When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer and the chief official in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, 2 he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD. 3 The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib. 4 For this is what the LORD says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies before your very eyes. And I will hand Judah over to the king of Babylon, and he will carry them away to Babylon and put them to the sword. 5 I will give away all the wealth of this city—all its products and valuables, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah—to their enemies. They will plunder them, seize them, and carry them off to Babylon. 6 And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, will go into captivity. You will go to Babylon, and there you will die and be buried—you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied these lies.’” 7 You have deceived me, O LORD, and I was deceived. You have overcome me and prevailed. I am a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. 8 For whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and destruction. For the word of the LORD has become to me a reproach and derision all day long. 9 If I say, “I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,” His message becomes a fire burning in my heart, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding it in, and I cannot prevail. 10 For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!” All my trusted friends watch for my fall: “Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.” 11 But the LORD is with me like a fearsome warrior. Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. Since they have not succeeded, they will be utterly put to shame, with an everlasting disgrace that will never be forgotten. 12 O LORD of Hosts, who examines the righteous, who sees the heart and mind, let me see Your vengeance upon them, for to You I have committed my cause. 13 Sing to the LORD! Praise the LORD! For He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers. 14 Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed. 15 Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, saying, “A son is born to you,” bringing him great joy. 16 May that man be like the cities that the LORD overthrew without compassion. May he hear an outcry in the morning and a battle cry at noon, 17 because he did not kill me in the womb so that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb forever enlarged. 18 Why did I come out of the womb to see only trouble and sorrow, and to end my days in shame?
Psalm 93
The LORD reigns! He is robed in majesty; the LORD has clothed and armed Himself with strength. The world indeed is firmly established; it cannot be moved. 2 Your throne was established long ago; You are from all eternity. 3 The floodwaters have risen, O LORD; the rivers have raised their voice; the seas lift up their pounding waves. 4 Above the roar of many waters—the mighty breakers of the sea—the LORD on high is majestic. 5 Your testimonies are fully confirmed; holiness adorns Your house, O LORD, for all the days to come.
John 17
When Jesus had spoken these things, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. 2 For You granted Him authority over all people, so that He may give eternal life to all those You have given Him. 3 Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. 4 I have glorified You on earth by accomplishing the work You gave Me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world existed. 6 I have revealed Your name to those You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours; You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 Now they know that everything You have given Me comes from You. 8 For I have given them the words You gave Me, and they have received them. They knew with certainty that I came from You, and they believed that You sent Me. 9 I ask on their behalf. I do not ask on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those You have given Me; for they are Yours. 10 All I have is Yours, and all You have is Mine; and in them I have been glorified. 11 I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, protect them by Your name, the name You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected and preserved them by Your name, the name You gave Me. Not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to You; and I am saying these things while I am in the world, so that they may have My joy fulfilled within them. 14 I have given them Your word and the world has hated them. For they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I am not asking that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I have also sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify Myself, so that they too may be sanctified by the truth. 20 I am not asking on behalf of them alone, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 I have given them the glory You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one— 23 I in them and You in Me—that they may be perfectly united, so that the world may know that You sent Me and have loved them just as You have loved Me. 24 Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am, that they may see the glory You gave Me because You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 Righteous Father, although the world has not known You, I know You, and they know that You sent Me. 26 And I have made Your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love You have for Me may be in them, and I in them.”
Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), dedicated to the public domain.
How to SOAP
Grab a journal and a pen. Read the chapters above and watch for the verse that stops you. Then take it through four steps.
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Scripture
Write out the verse that stood out to you.
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Observation
What is it saying? Who is speaking, and to whom?
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Application
What does it mean for your life today? Be specific.
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Prayer
Talk to God about it. Ask Him to help you live it.
Your SOAP journal
Write your SOAP here. Tap any verse in the reading to add it to Scripture. Your journal saves on this device only, so no one else sees it.
Added to your journal. Go to journal
Why daily devotions?
Devotions are time set aside each day to read God's Word and let Him speak. The point isn't checking off chapters. It's meeting with Him.
Ten or fifteen minutes is enough to start. Pick a time and a place and keep the appointment. Mornings work well for a lot of us, before the phone and the day start talking.
Missed a day? Don't start over. Read today's chapters and keep going.