Daily Devotions · March 8
Reading for March 8
Read the whole Bible in a year, a few chapters a day.
Deuteronomy 7–9 · Mark 15
Deuteronomy 7–9 · Mark 15, Berean Standard Bible
Deuteronomy 7
When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to possess, and He drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 because they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you. 5 Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth. 7 The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. 10 But those who hate Him He repays to their faces with destruction; He will not hesitate to repay to his face the one who hates Him. 11 So keep the commandments and statutes and ordinances that I am giving you to follow this day. 12 If you listen to these ordinances and keep them carefully, then the LORD your God will keep His covenant and the loving devotion that He swore to your fathers. 13 He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your land—your grain, new wine, and oil, the young of your herds and the lambs of your flocks—in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You will be blessed above all peoples; among you there will be no barren man or woman or livestock. 15 And the LORD will remove from you all sickness. He will not lay upon you any of the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on all who hate you. 16 You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God will deliver to you. Do not look on them with pity. Do not worship their gods, for that will be a snare to you. 17 You may say in your heart, “These nations are greater than we are; how can we drive them out?” 18 But do not be afraid of them. Be sure to remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt: 19 the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, and the mighty hand and outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20 Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet against them until even the survivors hiding from you have perished. 21 Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. 22 The LORD your God will drive out these nations before you little by little. You will not be enabled to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals would multiply around you. 23 But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. 24 He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you; you will annihilate them. 25 You must burn up the images of their gods; do not covet the silver and gold that is on them or take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it; for it is detestable to the LORD your God. 26 And you must not bring any detestable thing into your house, or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. You are to utterly detest and abhor it, because it is set apart for destruction.
Deuteronomy 8
You must carefully follow every commandment I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers. 2 Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments. 3 He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you. 6 Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, walking in His ways and fearing Him. 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; 9 a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper. 10 When you eat and are satisfied, you are to bless the LORD your God for the good land that He has given you. 11 Be careful not to forget the LORD your God by failing to keep His commandments and ordinances and statutes, which I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses in which to dwell, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud, and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land. He brought you water from the rock of flint. 16 He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper. 17 You might say in your heart, “The power and strength of my hands have made this wealth for me.” 18 But remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers even to this day. 19 If you ever forget the LORD your God and go after other gods to worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the LORD has destroyed before you, so you will perish if you do not obey the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 9
Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens. 2 The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them, and you have heard it said, “Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?” 3 But understand that today the LORD your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them and subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them swiftly, as the LORD has promised you. 4 When the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say in your heart, “Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.” Rather, the LORD is driving out these nations before you because of their wickedness. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or uprightness of heart that you are going in to possess their land, but it is because of their wickedness that the LORD your God is driving out these nations before you, to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people. 7 Remember this, and never forget how you provoked the LORD your God in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have been rebelling against the LORD. 8 At Horeb you provoked the LORD, and He was angry enough to destroy you. 9 When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water. 10 Then the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God with the exact words that the LORD spoke to you out of the fire on the mountain on the day of the assembly. 11 And at the end of forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 And the LORD said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.” 13 The LORD also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. 14 Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they are.” 15 So I went back down the mountain while it was blazing with fire, with the two tablets of the covenant in my hands. 16 And I saw how you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you. 17 So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, shattering them before your eyes. 18 Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and wrath that the LORD had directed against you, enough to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me this time as well. 20 The LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I also prayed for Aaron. 21 And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain. 22 You continued to provoke the LORD at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah. 23 And when the LORD sent you out from Kadesh-barnea, He said, “Go up and possess the land that I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You neither believed Him nor obeyed Him. 24 You have been rebelling against the LORD since the day I came to know you. 25 So I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said He would destroy you. 26 And I prayed to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people and the wickedness of their sin. 28 Otherwise, those in the land from which You brought us out will say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ 29 But they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and outstretched arm.”
Mark 15
Early in the morning, the chief priests, elders, scribes, and the whole Sanhedrin devised a plan. They bound Jesus, led Him away, and handed Him over to Pilate. 2 So Pilate questioned Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” “You have said so,” Jesus replied. 3 And the chief priests began to accuse Him of many things. 4 Then Pilate questioned Him again, “Have You no answer? Look how many charges they are bringing against You!” 5 But to Pilate’s amazement, Jesus made no further reply. 6 Now it was Pilate’s custom at the feast to release to the people a prisoner of their choosing. 7 And a man named Barabbas was imprisoned with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. 8 So the crowd went up and began asking Pilate to keep his custom. 9 “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” Pilate asked. 10 For he knew it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas to them instead. 12 So Pilate asked them again, “What then do you want me to do with the One you call the King of the Jews?” 13 And they shouted back, “Crucify Him!” 14 “Why?” asked Pilate. “What evil has He done?” But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify Him!” 15 And wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed Him over to be crucified. 16 Then the soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called the whole company together. 17 They dressed Him in a purple robe, twisted together a crown of thorns, and set it on His head. 18 And they began to salute Him: “Hail, King of the Jews!” 19 They kept striking His head with a staff and spitting on Him. And they knelt down and bowed before Him. 20 After they had mocked Him, they removed the purple robe and put His own clothes back on Him. Then they led Him out to crucify Him. 21 Now Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and the soldiers forced him to carry the cross of Jesus. 22 They brought Jesus to a place called Golgotha, which means The Place of the Skull. 23 There they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He did not take it. 24 And they crucified Him. They also divided His garments by casting lots to decide what each of them would take. 25 It was the third hour when they crucified Him. 26 And the charge inscribed against Him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27 Along with Jesus, they crucified two robbers, one on His right and one on His left. 28 29 And those who passed by heaped abuse on Him, shaking their heads and saying, “Aha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save Yourself!” 31 In the same way, the chief priests and scribes mocked Him among themselves, saying, “He saved others, but He cannot save Himself! 32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, so that we may see and believe!” And even those who were crucified with Him berated Him. 33 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 34 At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” 35 When some of those standing nearby heard this, they said, “Behold, He is calling Elijah.” 36 And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine. He put it on a reed and held it up for Jesus to drink, saying, “Leave Him alone. Let us see if Elijah comes to take Him down.” 37 But Jesus let out a loud cry and breathed His last. 38 And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 When the centurion standing there in front of Jesus saw how He had breathed His last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” 40 And there were also women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41 These women had followed Jesus and ministered to Him while He was in Galilee, and there were many other women who had come up to Jerusalem with Him. 42 Now it was already evening. Since it was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath), 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent Council member who himself was waiting for the kingdom of God, boldly went to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that Jesus was already dead, so he summoned the centurion to ask if this was so. 45 When Pilate had confirmed it with the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. 46 So Joseph bought a linen cloth, took down the body of Jesus, wrapped it in the cloth, and placed it in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. 47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where His body was placed.
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
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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.
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