Daily Devotions · February 12
Reading for February 12
Read the whole Bible in a year, a few chapters a day.
Leviticus 18–19 · Psalm 13 · Acts 19
Leviticus 18–19 · Psalm 13 · Acts 19, Berean Standard Bible
Leviticus 18
Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: I am the LORD your God. 3 You must not follow the practices of the land of Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not follow the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you. You must not walk in their customs. 4 You are to practice My judgments and keep My statutes by walking in them. I am the LORD your God. 5 Keep My statutes and My judgments, for the man who does these things will live by them. I am the LORD. 6 None of you are to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the LORD. 7 You must not expose the nakedness of your father by having sexual relations with your mother. She is your mother; you must not have sexual relations with her. 8 You must not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; it would dishonor your father. 9 You must not have sexual relations with your sister, either your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether she was born in the same home or elsewhere. 10 You must not have sexual relations with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, for that would shame your family. 11 You must not have sexual relations with the daughter of your father’s wife, born to your father; she is your sister. 12 You must not have sexual relations with your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative. 13 You must not have sexual relations with your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s close relative. 14 You must not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations with her; she is your aunt. 15 You must not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; you are not to have sexual relations with her. 16 You must not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would shame your brother. 17 You must not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. You are not to marry her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter and have sexual relations with her. They are close relatives; it is depraved. 18 You must not take your wife’s sister as a rival wife and have sexual relations with her while your wife is still alive. 19 You must not approach a woman to have sexual relations with her during her menstrual period. 20 You must not lie carnally with your neighbor’s wife and thus defile yourself with her. 21 You must not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. 22 You must not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination. 23 You must not lie carnally with any animal, thus defiling yourself with it; a woman must not stand before an animal to mate with it; that is a perversion. 24 Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for by all these things the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves. 25 Even the land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its sin, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants. 26 But you are to keep My statutes and ordinances, and you must not commit any of these abominations—neither your native-born nor the foreigner who lives among you. 27 For the men who were in the land before you committed all these abominations, and the land has become defiled. 28 So if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it spewed out the nations before you. 29 Therefore anyone who commits any of these abominations must be cut off from among his people. 30 You must keep My charge not to practice any of the abominable customs that were practiced before you, so that you do not defile yourselves by them. I am the LORD your God.”
Leviticus 19
Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 “Speak to the whole congregation of Israel and tell them: Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. 3 Each of you must respect his mother and father, and you must keep My Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God. 4 Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods. I am the LORD your God. 5 When you sacrifice a peace offering to the LORD, you shall offer it for your acceptance. 6 It shall be eaten on the day you sacrifice it, or on the next day; but what remains on the third day must be burned up. 7 If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is tainted and will not be accepted. 8 Whoever eats it will bear his iniquity, for he has profaned what is holy to the LORD. That person must be cut off from his people. 9 When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10 You must not strip your vineyard bare or gather its fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God. 11 You must not steal. You must not lie or deceive one another. 12 You must not swear falsely by My name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. 13 You must not defraud your neighbor or rob him. You must not withhold until morning the wages due a hired hand. 14 You must not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God. I am the LORD. 15 You must not pervert justice; you must not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the rich; you are to judge your neighbor fairly. 16 You must not go about spreading slander among your people. You must not endanger the life of your neighbor. I am the LORD. 17 You must not harbor hatred against your brother in your heart. Directly rebuke your neighbor, so that you will not incur guilt on account of him. 18 Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. 19 You are to keep My statutes. You shall not crossbreed two different kinds of livestock; you shall not sow your fields with two kinds of seed; and you shall not wear clothing made of two kinds of material. 20 If a man lies carnally with a slave girl promised to another man but who has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there must be due punishment. But they are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed. 21 The man, however, must bring a ram to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting as his guilt offering to the LORD. 22 The priest shall make atonement on his behalf before the LORD with the ram of the guilt offering for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven the sin he has committed. 23 When you enter the land and plant any kind of tree for food, you shall regard the fruit as forbidden. For three years it will be forbidden to you and must not be eaten. 24 In the fourth year all its fruit must be consecrated as a praise offering to the LORD. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit; thus your harvest will be increased. I am the LORD your God. 26 You must not eat anything with blood still in it. You must not practice divination or sorcery. 27 You must not cut off the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. 28 You must not make any cuts in your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD. 29 You must not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will be prostituted and filled with depravity. 30 You must keep My Sabbaths and have reverence for My sanctuary. I am the LORD. 31 You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God. 32 You are to rise in the presence of the elderly, honor the aged, and fear your God. I am the LORD. 33 When a foreigner resides with you in your land, you must not oppress him. 34 You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. 35 You must not use dishonest measures of length, weight, or volume. 36 You shall maintain honest scales and weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. 37 You must keep all My statutes and all My ordinances and follow them. I am the LORD.”
Psalm 13
For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? 2 How long must I wrestle in my soul, with sorrow in my heart each day? How long will my enemy dominate me? 3 Consider me and respond, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death, 4 lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes rejoice when I fall. 5 But I have trusted in Your loving devotion; my heart will rejoice in Your salvation. 6 I will sing to the LORD, for He has been good to me.
Acts 19
While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the interior and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” “No,” they answered, “we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 “Into what, then, were you baptized?” Paul asked. “The baptism of John,” they replied. 4 Paul explained: “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the One coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. 7 There were about twelve men in all. 8 Then Paul went into the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. 9 But when some of them stubbornly refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way, Paul took his disciples and left the synagogue to conduct daily discussions in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. 10 This continued for two years, so that everyone who lived in the province of Asia, Jews and Greeks alike, heard the word of the Lord. 11 God did extraordinary miracles through the hands of Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and the diseases and evil spirits left them. 13 Now there were some itinerant Jewish exorcists who tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those with evil spirits. They would say, “I command you by Jesus, whom Paul proclaims.” 14 Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. 15 But one day the evil spirit responded, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” 16 Then the man with the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. The attack was so violent that they ran out of the house naked and wounded. 17 This became known to all the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, and fear came over all of them. So the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. 18 Many who had believed now came forward, confessing and disclosing their deeds. 19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books and burned them in front of everyone. When the value of the books was calculated, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. 20 So the word of the Lord powerfully continued to spread and prevail. 21 After these things had happened, Paul resolved in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. “After I have been there,” he said, “I must see Rome as well.” 22 He sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he stayed for a time in the province of Asia. 23 About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. 24 It began with a silversmith named Demetrius who made silver shrines of Artemis, bringing much business to the craftsmen. 25 Demetrius assembled the craftsmen, along with the workmen in related trades. “Men,” he said, “you know that this business is our source of prosperity. 26 And you can see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in nearly the whole province of Asia, this Paul has persuaded a great number of people to turn away. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all. 27 There is danger not only that our business will fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited and her majesty deposed—she who is worshiped by all the province of Asia and the whole world.” 28 When the men heard this, they were enraged and began shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 29 Soon the whole city was in disarray. They rushed together into the theatre, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia. 30 Paul wanted to go before the assembly, but the disciples would not allow him. 31 Even some of Paul’s friends who were officials of the province of Asia sent word to him, begging him not to venture into the theatre. 32 Meanwhile the assembly was in turmoil. Some were shouting one thing and some another, and most of them did not even know why they were there. 33 The Jews in the crowd pushed Alexander forward to explain himself, and he motioned for silence so he could make his defense to the people. 34 But when they realized that he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 35 Finally the city clerk quieted the crowd and declared, “Men of Ephesus, doesn’t everyone know that the city of Ephesus is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven? 36 Since these things are undeniable, you ought to be calm and not do anything rash. 37 For you have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed our temple nor blasphemed our goddess. 38 So if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open and proconsuls are available. Let them bring charges against one another there. 39 But if you are seeking anything beyond this, it must be settled in a legal assembly. 40 For we are in jeopardy of being charged with rioting for today’s events, and we have no justification to account for this commotion.” 41 After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.
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.