Daily Devotions · June 29

Reading for June 29

Read the whole Bible in a year, a few chapters a day.

Amos 4–6 · Psalm 86–87 · Titus 1

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Amos 4

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring us more to drink.” ² The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness: “Behold, the days are coming when you will be taken away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks. ³ You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,” declares the LORD. ⁴ “Go to Bethel and transgress; rebel even more at Gilgal! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days. ⁵ Offer leavened bread as a thank offering, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings. For that is what you children of Israel love to do,” declares the Lord GOD. ⁶ “I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ⁷ “I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered. ⁸ People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ⁹ “I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ¹⁰ “I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ¹¹ “Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ¹² “Therefore, that is what I will do to you, O Israel, and since I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel! ¹³ For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind and reveals His thoughts to man, who turns the dawn to darkness and strides on the heights of the earth—the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”

Amos 5

Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you: ² “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up.” ³ This is what the Lord GOD says: “The city that marches out a thousand strong will have but a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have but ten left in the house of Israel.” ⁴ For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live! ⁵ Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing. ⁶ Seek the LORD and live, or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph; it will devour everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it. ⁷ There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground. ⁸ He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the LORD is His name— ⁹ He flashes destruction on the strong, so that fury comes upon the stronghold. ¹⁰ There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate and despise him who speaks with integrity. ¹¹ Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted. ¹² For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate. ¹³ Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil. ¹⁴ Seek good, not evil, so that you may live. And the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed. ¹⁵ Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” ¹⁶ Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says: “There will be wailing in all the public squares and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets. The farmer will be summoned to mourn, and the mourners to wail. ¹⁷ There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD. ¹⁸ Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD! What will the Day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light. ¹⁹ It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake. ²⁰ Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it? ²¹ “I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. ²² Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard. ²³ Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. ²⁴ But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ²⁵ Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? ²⁶ You have taken along Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, the idols you made for yourselves. ²⁷ Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.

Amos 6

Woe to those at ease in Zion and those secure on Mount Samaria, the distinguished ones of the foremost nation, to whom the house of Israel comes. ² Cross over to Calneh and see; go from there to the great Hamath; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Is their territory larger than yours? ³ You dismiss the day of calamity and bring near a reign of violence. ⁴ You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge upon your couches. You dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall. ⁵ You improvise songs on the harp like David and invent your own musical instruments. ⁶ You drink wine by the bowlful and anoint yourselves with the finest oils, but you fail to grieve over the ruin of Joseph. ⁷ Therefore, you will now go into exile as the first of the captives, and your feasting and lounging will come to an end. ⁸ The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself—the LORD, the God of Hosts, has declared: “I abhor Jacob’s pride and detest his citadels, so I will deliver up the city and everything in it.” ⁹ And if there are ten men left in one house, they too will die. ¹⁰ And when the relative who is to burn the bodies picks them up to remove them from the house, he will call to one inside, “Is anyone else with you?” “None,” that person will answer. “Silence,” the relative will retort, “for the name of the LORD must not be invoked.” ¹¹ For the LORD gives a command: “The great house will be smashed to pieces, and the small house to rubble.” ¹² “Do horses gallop on the cliffs? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood— ¹³ you who rejoice in Lo-debar and say, ‘Did we not take Karnaim by our own strength?’ ¹⁴ For behold, I will raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD, the God of Hosts, “and they will oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.”

Psalm 86

A prayer of David. Incline Your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. ² Preserve my soul, for I am godly. You are my God; save Your servant who trusts in You. ³ Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I call to You all day long. ⁴ Bring joy to Your servant, for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. ⁵ For You, O Lord, are kind and forgiving, rich in loving devotion to all who call on You. ⁶ Hear my prayer, O LORD, and attend to my plea for mercy. ⁷ In the day of my distress I call on You, because You answer me. ⁸ O Lord, there is none like You among the gods, nor any works like Yours. ⁹ All the nations You have made will come and bow before You, O Lord, and they will glorify Your name. ¹⁰ For You are great and perform wonders; You alone are God. ¹¹ Teach me Your way, O LORD, that I may walk in Your truth. Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name. ¹² I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify Your name forever. ¹³ For great is Your loving devotion to me; You have delivered me from the depths of Sheol. ¹⁴ The arrogant rise against me, O God; a band of ruthless men seeks my life; they have no regard for You. ¹⁵ But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness. ¹⁶ Turn to me and have mercy; grant Your strength to Your servant; save the son of Your maidservant. ¹⁷ Show me a sign of Your goodness, that my enemies may see and be ashamed; for You, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

Psalm 87

A Psalm of the sons of Korah. A song. He has founded His city on the holy mountains. ² The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. ³ Glorious things are ascribed to you, O city of God. Selah ⁴ “I will mention Rahab and Babylon among those who know Me—along with Philistia, Tyre, and Cush—when I say, ‘This one was born in Zion.’” ⁵ And it will be said of Zion: “This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High Himself will establish her.” ⁶ The LORD will record in the register of the peoples: “This one was born in Zion.” Selah ⁷ Singers and pipers will proclaim, “All my springs of joy are in You.”

Titus 1

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, ² in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. ³ In His own time He has made His word evident in the proclamation entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior. ⁴ To Titus, my true child in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. ⁵ The reason I left you in Crete was that you would set in order what was unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you. ⁶ An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, having children who are believers and who are not open to accusation of indiscretion or insubordination. ⁷ As God’s steward, an overseer must be above reproach—not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not greedy for money. ⁸ Instead, he must be hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. ⁹ He must hold firmly to the faithful word as it was taught, so that he can encourage others by sound teaching and refute those who contradict it. ¹⁰ For many are rebellious and full of empty talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision, ¹¹ who must be silenced. For the sake of dishonorable gain, they undermine entire households and teach things they should not. ¹² As one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” ¹³ This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sternly, so that they will be sound in the faith ¹⁴ and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of men who have rejected the truth. ¹⁵ To the pure, all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Indeed, both their minds and their consciences are defiled. ¹⁶ They profess to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.

Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), dedicated to the public domain.

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Amos 4–6 · Psalm 86–87 · Titus 1, Berean Standard Bible