Daily Devotions · March 13
Reading for March 13
Read the whole Bible in a year, a few chapters a day.
Deuteronomy 22–24 · Galatians 4
Deuteronomy 22–24 · Galatians 4, Berean Standard Bible
Deuteronomy 22
If you see your brother’s ox or sheep straying, you must not ignore it; be sure to return it to your brother. 2 If your brother does not live near you, or if you do not know who he is, you are to take the animal home to remain with you until your brother comes seeking it; then you can return it to him. 3 And you shall do the same for his donkey, his cloak, or anything your brother has lost and you have found. You must not ignore it. 4 If you see your brother’s donkey or ox fallen on the road, you must not ignore it; you must help him lift it up. 5 A woman must not wear men’s clothing, and a man must not wear women’s clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD your God. 6 If you come across a bird’s nest with chicks or eggs, either in a tree or on the ground along the road, and the mother is sitting on the chicks or eggs, you must not take the mother along with the young. 7 You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days. 8 If you build a new house, you are to construct a railing around your roof, so that you do not bring bloodguilt on your house if someone falls from it. 9 Do not plant your vineyard with two types of seed; if you do, the entire harvest will be defiled—both the crop you plant and the fruit of your vineyard. 10 Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. 11 Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. 12 You are to make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear. 13 Suppose a man marries a woman, has relations with her, and comes to hate her, 14 and he then accuses her of shameful conduct and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman and had relations with her, but I discovered she was not a virgin.” 15 Then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring the proof of her virginity to the city elders at the gate 16 and say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he has come to hate her. 17 And now he has accused her of shameful conduct, saying, ‘I discovered that your daughter was not a virgin.’ But here is the proof of her virginity.” And they shall spread out the cloth before the city elders. 18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man and punish him. 19 They are also to fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given a virgin of Israel a bad name. And she shall remain his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives. 20 If, however, this accusation is true, and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house, and there the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous in her father’s house. So you must purge the evil from among you. 22 If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. 23 If there is a virgin pledged in marriage to a man, and another man encounters her in the city and sleeps with her, 24 you must take both of them out to the gate of that city and stone them to death—the young woman because she did not cry out in the city, and the man because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. So you must purge the evil from among you. 25 But if the man encounters a betrothed woman in the open country, and he overpowers her and lies with her, only the man who has done this must die. 26 Do nothing to the young woman, because she has committed no sin worthy of death. This case is just like one in which a man attacks his neighbor and murders him. 27 When he found her in the field, the betrothed woman cried out, but there was no one to save her. 28 If a man encounters a virgin who is not pledged in marriage, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, 29 then the man who lay with her must pay the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she must become his wife because he has violated her. He must not divorce her as long as he lives. 30 A man is not to marry his father’s wife, so that he will not dishonor his father’s marriage bed.
Deuteronomy 23
No man with crushed or severed genitals may enter the assembly of the LORD. 2 No one of illegitimate birth may enter the assembly of the LORD, nor may any of his descendants, even to the tenth generation. 3 No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even to the tenth generation. 4 For they did not meet you with food and water on your way out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram-naharaim to curse you. 5 Yet the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam, and the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. 6 You are not to seek peace or prosperity from them as long as you live. 7 Do not despise an Edomite, for he is your brother. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land. 8 The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD. 9 When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every wicked thing. 10 If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he must leave the camp and stay outside. 11 When evening approaches, he must wash with water, and when the sun sets he may return to the camp. 12 You must have a place outside the camp to go and relieve yourself. 13 And you must have a digging tool in your equipment so that when you relieve yourself you can dig a hole and cover up your excrement. 14 For the LORD your God walks throughout your camp to protect you and deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, lest He see anything unclean among you and turn away from you. 15 Do not return a slave to his master if he has taken refuge with you. 16 Let him live among you wherever he chooses, in the town of his pleasing. Do not oppress him. 17 No daughter or son of Israel is to be a shrine prostitute. 18 You must not bring the wages of a prostitute, whether female or male, into the house of the LORD your God to fulfill any vow, because both are detestable to the LORD your God. 19 Do not charge your brother interest on money, food, or any other type of loan. 20 You may charge a foreigner interest, but not your brother, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything to which you put your hand in the land that you are entering to possess. 21 If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to keep it, because He will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. 22 But if you refrain from making a vow, you will not be guilty of sin. 23 Be careful to follow through on what comes from your lips, because you have freely vowed to the LORD your God with your own mouth. 24 When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, but you must not put any in your basket. 25 When you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.
Deuteronomy 24
If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house. 2 If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3 and the second man hates her, writes her a certificate of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house, or if he dies, 4 then the husband who divorced her first may not remarry her after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the LORD. You must not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. 5 If a man is newly married, he must not be sent to war or be pressed into any duty. For one year he is free to stay at home and bring joy to the wife he has married. 6 Do not take a pair of millstones or even an upper millstone as security for a debt, because that would be taking one’s livelihood as security. 7 If a man is caught kidnapping one of his Israelite brothers, whether he treats him as a slave or sells him, the kidnapper must die. So you must purge the evil from among you. 8 In cases of infectious skin diseases, be careful to diligently follow everything the Levitical priests instruct you. Be careful to do as I have commanded them. 9 Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam on the journey after you came out of Egypt. 10 When you lend anything to your neighbor, do not enter his house to collect security. 11 You are to stand outside while the man to whom you are lending brings the security out to you. 12 If he is a poor man, you must not go to sleep with the security in your possession; 13 be sure to return it to him by sunset, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and this will be credited to you as righteousness before the LORD your God. 14 Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. 15 You are to pay his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and depends on them. Otherwise he may cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin. 16 Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin. 17 Do not deny justice to the foreigner or the fatherless, and do not take a widow’s cloak as security. 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you from that place. Therefore I am commanding you to do this. 19 If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, you must not go over the branches again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you must not go over the vines again. What remains will be for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow. 22 Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt. Therefore I am commanding you to do this.
Galatians 4
What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he is the owner of everything. 2 He is subject to guardians and trustees until the date set by his father. 3 So also, when we were children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world. 4 But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God. 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10 You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11 I fear for you, that my efforts for you may have been in vain. 12 I beg you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You have done me no wrong. 13 You know that it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. 14 And although my illness was a trial to you, you did not despise or reject me. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus Himself. 15 What then has become of your blessing? For I can testify that, if it were possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 Those people are zealous for you, but not in a good way. Instead, they want to isolate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them. 18 Nevertheless, it is good to be zealous if it serves a noble purpose—at any time, and not only when I am with you. 19 My children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, 20 how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you. 21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not understand what the law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born through the promise. 24 These things serve as illustrations, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children into slavery: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.” 28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 At that time, however, the son born by the flesh persecuted the son born by the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” 31 Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
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.