Daily Readings - 20/06/2026

^24:17 After the death of Jehoiada, the officials of Judah came to pay court to the king, and the king now turned to them for advice.

^24:18 The Judaeans abandoned the Temple of Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, for the worship of sacred poles and idols. Because of their guilt, God’s anger fell on Judah and Jerusalem.

^24:19 He sent them prophets to bring them back to Yahweh, but when these gave their message, they would not listen.

^24:20 The spirit of God took possession of Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood up before the people and said, ‘God says this, “Why do you transgress the commandments of Yahweh to no good purpose? You have deserted Yahweh, now he deserts you.”‘

^24:21 They then plotted against him and by order of the king stoned him in the court of the Temple of Yahweh.

^24:22 King Joash, forgetful of the kindness that Jehoiada, the father of Zechariah, had shown him, killed Jehoiada’s son who cried out as he died, ‘Yahweh sees and he will avenge!’

^24:23 When a year had gone by, the Aramaean army made war on Joash. They reached Judah and Jerusalem, and executed all the officials among the people, sending back to the king at Damascus all that they had plundered from them.

^24:24 Though the Aramaean army had by no means come in force, Yahweh delivered into its power an army of great size for having deserted him, the God of their ancestors. The Aramaeans treated Joash as he had deserved,

^24:25 and when they retired they left him a very sick man; and his officers, plotting against him to avenge the death of the son of Jehoiada the priest, murdered him in his bed. So he died, and they buried him in the Citadel of David, though not in the tombs of the kings.

^88:1 Yahweh my God, I call for help all day, I weep to you all night;

^88:2 may my prayer reach you hear my cries for help;

^88:3 for my soul is all troubled, my life is on the brink of Sheol;

^88:4 I am numbered among those who go down to the Pit, a man bereft of strength:

^88:5 a man alone, down among the dead, among the slaughtered in their graves, among those you have forgotten, those deprived of your protecting hand.

^88:6 You have plunged me to the bottom of the Pit, to its darkest, deepest place,

^88:7 weighted down by your anger, drowned beneath your waves. (pause)

^88:8 You have turned my friends against me and made me repulsive to them; in prison and unable to escape, my eyes are worn out with suffering.

^88:9 Yahweh, I invoke you all day, I stretch out my hands to you:

^88:10 are your marvels meant for the dead, can ghosts rise up to praise you?

^88:11 Who talks of your love in the grave, of your faithfulness in the place of perdition?

^88:12 Do they hear about your marvels in the dark, about your righteousness in the land of oblivion? (pause)

^88:13 But I am here, calling for your help, praying to you every morning:

^88:14 why do you reject me? Why do you hide your face from me?

^88:15 Wretched, slowly dying since my youth, I bore your terrors – now I am exhausted;

^88:16 your anger overwhelmed me, you destroyed me with your terrors

^88:17 which, like a flood, were round me, all day long, all together closing in on me.

^88:18 You have turned my friends and neighbours against me, now darkness is my one companion left.

^6:24 ‘No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.

^6:25 ‘That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing!

^6:26 Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are we not worth much more than they are?

^6:27 Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life?

^6:28 And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin;

^6:29 yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these.

^6:30 Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you men of little faith?

^6:31 So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?”

^6:32 It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all.

^6:33 Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well.

^6:34 So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

^20:10 I hear so many disparaging me, ‘”Terror from every side!” Denounce him! Let us denounce him!’ All those who used to be my friends watched for my downfall, ‘Perhaps he will be seduced into error. Then we will master him and take our revenge!’

^20:11 But Yahweh is at my side, a mighty hero; my opponents will stumble, mastered, confounded by their failure; everlasting, unforgettable disgrace will be theirs.

^20:12 But you, Yahweh Sabaoth, you who probe with justice, who scrutinise the loins and heart, let me see the vengeance you will take on them, for I have committed my cause to you.

^20:13 Sing to Yahweh, praise Yahweh, for he has delivered the soul of the needy from the hands of evil men.

^68:1 Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered, let those who hate him flee before him!

^68:2 As smoke disperses, they disperse; as wax melts when near the fire, so the wicked perish when God approaches.

^68:3 But at God’s approach, the virtuous rejoice, exulting and singing for joy.

^68:4 Sing to Yahweh, play music to his name, build a road for the Rider of the Clouds, rejoice in Yahweh, exult at his coming!

^68:5 Father of orphans, defender of widows, such is God in his holy dwelling;

^68:6 God gives the lonely a permanent home, makes prisoners happy by setting them free, but rebels must live in an arid land.

^68:7 God, when you set out at the head of your people, and marched across the desert,

^68:8 the earth rocked, (pause) the heavens deluged at God’s coming, at the coming of God, the God of Israel.

^68:9 God, you rained a downpour of blessings, when your heritage was faint you gave it strength;

^68:10 your family found a home, where you in your goodness, God, provided for the needy.

^68:12 Kings are in flight, armies in flight, the women at home take their pick of the loot.

^68:13 Meanwhile you others were lolling in the sheepfolds. There were dove-wings covered with silver, on their pinions the sheen of green gold;

^68:15 That peak of Bashan, a mountain of God? Rather, a mountain of pride, that peak of Bashan!

^68:16 Peaks of pride, have you the right to look down on a mountain where God has chosen to live, where Yahweh is going to live for ever?

^68:17 With thousands of myriads of divine chariots the Lord has left Sinai for his sanctuary.

^68:18 God, you have ascended to the height, and captured prisoners, you have taken men as tribute, yes, taken rebels to your dwelling, Yahweh!

^68:19 Blessed be the Lord day after day, the God who saves us and bears our burdens!

^68:20 This God of ours is a God who saves, to the Lord Yahweh belong the ways of escape from death;

^68:21 but God will smash the heads of his enemies, the hairy skull of the man who parades his guilt.

^68:22 The Lord has promised, ‘I will bring them back from Bashan, I will bring them back from the bottom of the sea,

^68:23 for your feet to wade in blood, for the tongues of your dogs to lap their share of the enemy’.

^68:24 God, your procession can be seen, my God’s, my king’s procession to the sanctuary,

^68:25 with cantors marching in front, musicians behind, and between them maidens playing tambourines.

^68:26 Bless God in your choirs, bless the Lord, you who spring from Israel!

^68:27 Benjamin, the youngest, is there in the lead, the princes of Judah in brocaded robes, the princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.

^68:28 Take command, God, as befits your power, that power, God, you have wielded on our behalf

^68:29 from your Temple high above Jerusalem! Kings will come to you, bringing presents.

^68:30 Rebuke the Beast of the Reeds,[*a] that herd of bulls, those calves, that people, until, humbled, they bring gold and silver. Scatter those warmongering pagans!

^68:31 Ambassadors will come from Egypt, Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God.

^68:32 Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth, play for

^68:33 the Rider of the Heavens, the ancient heavens! (pause) Listen to him shouting, to his thundering,

^68:34 and acknowledge the power of God! Over Israel his splendour, in the clouds his power,

^68:35 God in his sanctuary is greatly to be feared. He, the God of Israel, gives power and strength to his people. Blessed be God.

^5:12 Well then, sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.

^5:13 Sin existed in the world long before the Law was given. There was no law and so no one could be accused of the sin of ‘law-breaking’,

^5:14 yet death reigned over all from Adam to Moses, even though their sin, unlike that of Adam, was not a matter of breaking a law. Adam prefigured the One to come,

^5:15 but the gift itself considerably outweighed the fall. If it is certain that through one man’s fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift.

^10:26 ‘Do not be afraid of them therefore. For everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear.

^10:27 What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops.

^10:28 ‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

^10:29 Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing.

^10:30 Why, every hair on your head has been counted.

^10:31 So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.

^10:32 ‘So if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven.

^10:33 But the one who disowns me in the presence of men, I will disown in the presence of my Father in heaven.