NL-Day300 Ezekiel 26-27; Isaiah 8:11—9:21; Hebrews 5

EZEKIEL 26-27:
Yesterday we heard a second word picture of Jerusalem as a cooking pot. This was not good news. Then Ezekiel received word that his treasure— his wife, would die. And he was commanded not to mourn as a sign of what the people would do when they heard about the slaughter in Jerusalem. Then there were messages of punishment for the nations of Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Philistia.

ISAIAH 9:
In yesterday’s reading, God gave Isaiah the name of his son (Maher-shalal-hash-baz, meaning “Swift to plunder and quick to carry away.”), which pictures the conquest of Judah by the Assyrian army. Then there was a wonderful and often quoted part that in the New Testament identifies Jesus as the stumbling stone:

Is. 8:11-15 NLT
11 The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does. He said, 
12 “Don’t call everything a conspiracy, like they do, and don’t live in dread of what frightens them. 
13 Make the Lord of Heaven’s Armies holy in your life. He is the one you should fear. He is the one who should make you tremble. 
14 He will keep you safe. But to Israel and Judah he will be a stone that makes people stumble, a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare. 
15 Many will stumble and fall, never to rise again. They will be snared and captured.”

HEBREWS 5:
Chapter 4 contains the wonderful verse about God’s word being living and active, and the encouragement to come boldly with our prayers before the throne of God.

The Greek for 4:9 literally says, “There remains a sabatismos for the people of God.” GNT translated that word as “‘a rest like God's resting on the seventh day.” Sabatismos— a word evidently coined by the writer, could mean God resting on the 7th day or the Sabbath day observance, or both. Here is verse 9 in our PET translation, which shows how we made the concept of a ‘place/land of rest’ clear in Indonesian:

Heb. 4:9 PET (Phil’s Plain English Translation) So this shows that there is still an opportunity for us— the people of God, to enter God’s ‘land of rest’— which is a spiritual calmness that can be pictured as like stopping work on the Sabbath Day.

Then the same chapter contains the wonderful verse about God’s word being “living and active” and the encouragement to “come boldly” with our prayers “before the throne of God.”

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.