NL-Day327 Nehemiah 5-6; Isaiah 36; Philippians 4
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
NEHEMIAH 5-6: Yesterday Nehemiah gave a listing of the people who rebuilt the wall. This included Shallum and his daughters, and two named goldsmiths, merchants, priests and Levites. The residents of the land opposed to the construction were threatening violence, so the people armed themselves and had men on guard at all times. Nehemiah and his men stayed fully armed at all times, and in the last verse of chapter 4 NLT says ‘even when they went for water’— which I take as a euphemism for going potty. That little phrase is very obscure in Hebrew, and GNT translates it in a different way....
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NL-Day326 Nehemiah 3-4; Isaiah 35; Philippians 3
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
NEHEMIAH 3-4:After Nehemiah’s wonderful prayer for Jerusalem, more than three months went by before the king noticed him looking sad. He says he had never before looked sad, so he must have waited. God must have been in the timing, because the king wonderfully agreed to help Nehemiah in every way. And the leaders in Jerusalem also were enthusiastic in their acceptance of his proposal to rebuild the walls. ISAIAH 35:Yesterday we heard that the land of Edom would become an eternal wasteland and a home for owls and other creatures. The land of Edom is in modern-day Jordan, and GoogleMaps shows...
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NL-Day325 Nehemiah 1-2; Isaiah 34; Philippians 2
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
NEHEMIAH 1:Yesterday we heard how the returned exiles responded to Ezra’s shock and demonstration of his sorrow, and his prayer of repentance. The book ended with the names of those who were found guilty of forbidden marriages. Note that these are not just names of the guilty, but names of those who repented and sacrificed to God. They are the names of the forgiven. In some ways— and not all, this shows the kind of seriousness with which church discipline spoken of in the New Testament should be conducted. (Matthew 18, 1 & 2 Corinthians) As I said just a few days ago, the book of...
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NL-Day324 Ezra 9-10; Isaiah 33; Philippians 1
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
EZRA 9-10: Yesterday we heard how Ezra introduced himself. Note that he spoke of himself in the 3rd person, but finally resorted to ‘I’. King Artaxerxes was certainly impressed by Ezra! Ezra was given everything he could have wanted, guaranteeing full government support of the temple worship in every way. Note how methodical Ezra was, making sure that he took Levites and temple servants along. His total party must have been at least 1,000 men. So with women and children, it would have been quite a group. And evidently others were coming back separately as well. ISAIAH 33: Having eyes...
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NL-Day323 Ezra 7-8; Isaiah 32; 2 Corinthians 12:19-13:14
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
EZRA 7-8: Yesterday we read of how King Darius completely sided with the Israelites seeking to reestablish the temple worship. Note that the letter to Darius from the government officials was rather complementary and not threatening loss to the king’s interests as the letter from the earlier officials. Remember also that this King Darius is the one who was duped into putting Daniel into the lions’ den, and who then issued a decree that everyone must respect Daniel’s God. ISAIAH 32: Isaiah’s prophecy in yesterday’s reading certainly came true! Is. 31:8 NLT “The Assyrians will be...
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NL-Day322 Ezra 5-6; Isaiah 31; 2 Corinthians 11:30-12:21
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
EZRA 5-6:When the Israelites returned from exile, they were determined to get worship started again, and they made great progress, not waiting for the temple to be repaired in order to start sacrifices on an altar built upon the old location. They made a fast start to building too. But then opposition developed, and several Persian kings later the progress was halted. ISAIAH 31: One of the great verses from yesterday’s reading was this: Is. 30:15 NLT This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and...
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NL-Day321 Ezra 3-4; Isaiah 30; 2 Corinthians 11
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
EZRA 3-4:Ezra, a scribe and priest, doesn’t start speaking about himself until chapter 7. Ancient copies of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were written on the same scroll, and Jewish tradition holds that Ezra wrote both of them. The dates of writing are somewhere between 458 and 420 BC. I kind of doubt that Ezra was the author for both books, because the writer of Nehemiah starts out right away using the first person pronoun ‘I’. The two books deal with two periods of time: Ezra deals with the rebuilding of the temple, and Nehemiah deals with the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem....
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NL-Day320 Ezra 1-2; Isaiah 29; 2 Corinthians 10
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
EZRA 1:Before going to Ezra, I want to say that one can do a whole lot of digging deeper in the last two chapters of Daniel. History tells about those kings, and we know from what Jesus said and what is written in Revelation, that God plans for history to repeat itself. The main ‘take-away’ points are clear, just as they are in Revelation: Blessed are those who endure and live wise and holy lives. It is a great time now to return to those three small remaining books of history remaining for us to read this year: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. These books allow us to see the fulfilment of...
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NL-Day319 Daniel 10:20-12:13; Isaiah 28; 2 Corinthians 9
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
DANIEL 10:20—12:In yesterday’s reading, we heard Daniel’s sincere prayer. Note that he had been seeking the Lord with limited fasting for 3 weeks. Then the angel Gabriel is again sent with a message for Daniel. Note that the phrase ‘anoint the Most Holy Place’ is probably referring to what we read about in Hebrews recently— that which our High Priest Jesus did in heaven. Gabriel’s message about seventy sets of seven, or seventy weeks and 62 weeks, are both a difficult translational problem and a prophetic mystery. If we could solve the prophetic mystery, then we would know how to...
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NL-Day318 Daniel 9-10; Isaiah 26:20-27:13; 2 Corinthians 8
Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields
DANIEL 9-10:Yesterday in Daniel, we heard of the vision of four beasts representing four kingdoms. After the fourth would be the start of the rule of One whose kingdom would last forever. This vision was explained, then Daniel had a second and more detailed vision. It is a major amazing sign of God’s sovereignty over human governments that Alexander the Great is so clearly portrayed, and after that the iron kingdom of Rome. Just as certain as these things happened, our Savior’s reign will one day come to earth. I have been referring to Daniel 7 all year, to the section where he saw...
info_outlineMost people find out about the DBRP through the YouVersion Bible reading app on their smart device. If you are one who has found out about these podcasts through some other means (such as via Apple Podcasts), then I want to make you aware that the Bible app created by YouVersion is wonderful. You can subscribe to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan within the app, then reading along with these daily podcasts is very easy. Just start your episode using your podcast player, then go to your day in the YouVersion Reading Plan. Please be aware that you can turn on the YouVersion app’s audio for the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. If you do this, a very nice Alexa/Siri-like voice will read the devotional introductions to the three readings for the day, and after that the voice for the Bible you select will read the Bible readings. This makes a great way to add variety to your daily listening if you get tired of my voice, however, there will be no prayer at the end.
I again want to express my gratitude to Tyndale House Foundation for their permission to publish the full audio of the NLT Bible through this podcast series. The full copyright attribution text is found at the end of the episode notes for each podcast.
Based on my experience as a Bible translator, I have made a few changes to the text of the NLT for these podcasts. These are for the sake of clarity and naturalness for those who are only listening to the recordings without reading along. All of my changes are documented in the episode notes, sometimes with brief explanations.
GENESIS 7-8:
In Genesis 5, we heard the overview of the descendants of Adam and Eve up to Noah. In chapter 6, Noah was further introduced. Also the reason for the flood was explained.
JOB 4:
In chapter 3 Job cursed the day he was born and expressed his deep misery.
Remember that in the speeches of Job’s three friends we will see a mixture of truth and error. In particular, we should not follow Eliphaz’s example in today’s chapter. The Bible tells us repeatedly that we are not to trust or listen to communication from spirits. We will read the second chapter of Eliphaz’ response tomorrow.
MARK 3:
In Mark 2, Jesus shocked his listeners by first forgiving a paralyzed man’s sins before actually healing the man’s body. And in three other events in chapter 2 we can see the beginnings of the conflict between Jesus and the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees.
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NLT Translation notes:
Job 4:6 How come//Doesn’t] your reverence for God [doesn't/0] give you confidence?
[Perhaps you place too much confidence in your own integrity.//Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?]
[Translation note: I have interpreted the two questions in v6 as rebuking rhetorical questions and translated them as statements. See the note
at the end of Mark 3.]
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Mrk. 3:10 He had healed many people that day, so all the [other/0] sick people eagerly pushed forward to touch him.
23 Jesus called them over and responded with an
illustration. [It is not possible that Satan would drive out his own demons.”//“How can Satan cast out Satan?” he asked.]
33 Jesus replied, [“Let me show you the kind of people whom I regard as my mother and brothers!”// “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?]
[In verse 23, Jesus was not asking a real question. He was using a rhetorical question to open the topic he was going to teach about. In our translations in Indonesia, we frequently changed Jesus' rhetorical questions to statements. This is because in many languages (and really even in English) people do not use rhetorical questions as their topic sentence at the beginning of a teaching. So if we didn't change such questions to statements, our readers would wrongly think that Jesus was unsure about what He was talking about and that He often started by asking his audience for advice.]
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.