Friday, December 18, 2020

Fast Day

Hebrews 3:12-4:10
Luke 18:1-8

Hebrews 3:12-4:10

[12] Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
[13] But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
[14] For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end,
[15] while it is said, “Today, when you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
[16] Who were they that heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses?
[17] And with whom was he provoked forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
[18] And to whom did he swear that they should never enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
[19] So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Chapter 4
[1] Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it.
[2] For good news came to us just as to them; but the message which they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers.
[3] For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath,
`They shall never enter my rest,’”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.
[4] For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”
[5] And again in this place he said, “They shall never enter my rest.”
[6] Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,
[7] again he sets a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, when you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
[8] For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later of another day.
[9] So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God;
[10] for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his.

Luke 18:1-8

[1] And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
[2] He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man;
[3] and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, `Vindicate me against my adversary.’
[4] For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, `Though I neither fear God nor regard man,
[5] yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.’”
[6] And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says.
[7] And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?
[8] I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

The Revised Standard Version of the Bible is copyright © National Council of Churches of Christ in America