Daily Readings - 25/06/2026

^24:8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan, from Jerusalem.

^24:9 He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, just as his father had done.

^24:10 At that time the troops of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched on Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.

^24:11 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon himself came to attack the city while his troops were besieging it.

^24:12 Then Jehoiachin king of Judah surrendered to the king of Babylon, he, his mother, his officers, his nobles and his eunuchs, and the king of Babylon took them prisoner. This was in the eighth year of King Nebuchadnezzar.

^24:13 The latter carried off all the treasures of the Temple of Yahweh and the treasures of the royal palace, and broke up all the golden furnishings that Solomon king of Israel had made for the sanctuary of Yahweh, as Yahweh had foretold.

^24:14 He carried off all Jerusalem into exile, all the nobles and all the notables, ten thousand of these were exiled, with all the blacksmiths and metalworkers; only the poorest people in the country were left behind.

^24:15 He deported Jehoiachin to Babylon, as also the king’s mother, his eunuchs and the nobility of the country; he made them all leave Jerusalem for exile in Babylon.

^24:16 All the men of distinction, seven thousand of them, the blacksmiths and metalworkers, one thousand of them, all of them men capable of bearing arms, were led into exile in Babylon by the king of Babylon.

^24:17 The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in succession to him, and changed his name to Zedekiah.

^78:1 Listen to this Law, my people, pay attention to what I say;

^78:2 I am going to speak to you in parable and expound the mysteries of our past.

^78:3 What we have heard and known for ourselves, and what our ancestors have told us,

^78:4 must not be withheld from their descendants, but be handed on by us to the next generation; that is: the titles of Yahweh, his power and the miracles he has done.

^78:5 When he issued the decrees for Jacob and instituted a Law in Israel, he gave our ancestors strict orders to teach it to their children;

^78:6 the next generation was to learn it, the children still to be born, and these in their turn were to tell their own children

^78:7 so that they too would put their confidence in God, never forgetting God’s achievements, and always keeping his commandments,

^78:8 and not becoming, like their ancestors, a stubborn and unruly generation, a generation with no sincerity of heart, in spirit unfaithful to God.

^78:9 The sons of Ephraim, who were bowmen, turned tail when the time came to fight;

^78:10 they had not kept God’s covenant, they refused to follow his Law;

^78:11 they had forgotten his achievements, the marvels he had shown them:

^78:12 he had worked wonders for their ancestors in the plains of Zoan, down in Egypt:

^78:13 dividing the sea, bringing them through, making the waters stand up like dikes,

^78:14 leading them with a cloud by day and with a fiery glow at night,

^78:15 splitting rocks in the wilderness, quenching their thirst with unlimited water,

^78:16 conjuring streams from the rock and bringing down water in torrents.

^78:17 They only sinned against him more than ever, defying the Most High in the desert,

^78:18 deliberately challenging God by demanding their favourite food.

^78:19 They blasphemed against God, ‘Is it likely’ they said ‘that God could give a banquet in the wilderness?

^78:20 ‘Admittedly, when he struck the rock, waters gushed, torrents streamed out, but bread now, can he give us that, can he provide meat for his people?’

^78:21 Yahweh was enraged when he heard them, a fire flared at Jacob, the wrath attacked Israel

^78:22 for having no faith in God, no trust in his power to save.

^78:23 He gave orders to the skies above, he opened the doors of heaven,

^78:24 he rained down manna to feed them, he gave them the wheat of heaven;

^78:25 men ate the bread of Immortals, he sent them more food than they could eat.

^78:26 He stirred up an east wind in the heavens, he conjured up a south wind by his power,

^78:27 he rained down meat on them like dust; birds as thick as sand on the seashore

^78:28 he sent tumbling into their camp, in all directions round their tents.

^78:29 They all had enough and to spare, he having provided what they wanted;

^78:30 but they had hardly satisfied their craving, the food was still in their mouths,

^78:31 when the wrath of God attacked them, slaughtering their strongest men and laying the flower of Israel low.

^78:32 Despite all this they went on sinning, and put no faith in his marvels;

^78:33 for which he blasted their days and their years in a flash.

^78:34 Whenever he slaughtered them they sought him, they came to their senses and sought him earnestly

^78:35 remembering that God was their rock, God the Most High, their redeemer.

^78:36 But though they outwardly flattered him and used their tongues to lie to him,

^78:37 in their hearts they were not true to him, they were unfaithful to his covenant.

^78:38 Compassionately, however, he forgave their guilt instead of killing them, repeatedly repressing his anger instead of rousing his full wrath,

^78:39 remembering they were creatures of flesh, a puff of wind that passes and does not return.

^78:40 How often they defied him in the wilderness, how often they outraged him in the desert,

^78:41 repeatedly challenging God, provoking the Holy One of Israel –

^78:42 entirely oblivious of his hand and of the time he saved them from the oppressor:

^78:43 by imposing his signs on Egypt, by displaying his wonders in the plains of Zoan,

^78:44 by turning their rivers into blood to stop them drinking from their streams,

^78:45 by sending horseflies to eat them and frogs to devastate them,

^78:46 by consigning their crops to the caterpillar and their hard-won harvest to the locust,

^78:47 by killing their vines with hail and their sycamore trees with frost,

^78:48 by condemning their cattle to plague and their flocks to feverish pests,

^78:49 by unleashing his fierce anger, rage, indignation and hardship on them, a mission of angels of disaster,

^78:50 by giving his anger free rein, by not even exempting them from death, by condemning them to plague,

^78:51 by striking down all the first-born in Egypt, the first-fruits of their virility in the tents of Ham,

^78:52 by driving his people out like sheep, by leading them through the wilderness like a flock,

^78:53 by guiding them safe and unafraid while the sea engulfed their enemies,

^78:54 by bringing them to his sacred frontier, the highlands conquered by his own right hand,

^78:55 by expelling the pagans in front of them and by marking out a heritage for each, in which the tribes of Israel could pitch their tents.

^78:56 Even so, they went on challenging God the Most High, rebelliously disregarding his decrees;

^78:57 as perverse and disloyal as their ancestors, treacherous as a bow with a warp,

^78:58 provoking him with their high places and rousing his jealousy with their idols.

^78:59 God was enraged when he heard them, he rejected Israel out of hand,

^78:60 he left his home in Shiloh, that tent where he once lived with men.

^78:61 He consigned his power to captivity, his splendour[*a] to the enemy’s clutches;

^78:62 he condemned his own people to the sword, he raged at his heritage,

^78:63 whose young men were then burnt to death – no brides left to hear the wedding song;

^78:64 whose priests fell by the sword – no widows left to raise the dirge.

^78:65 Then, like a sleeper, like a hero fighting-mad with wine, the Lord woke up

^78:66 to strike his enemies on the rump and put them to everlasting shame.

^78:67 Rejecting the tent of Joseph, not choosing the tribe of Ephraim,

^78:68 instead he chose the tribe of Judah and his well-loved mountain of Zion,

^78:69 where he built his sanctuary, a copy of high heaven, founding it firm as the earth for ever.

^78:70 Choosing David as his servant, he took him from the sheepfolds,

^78:71 called him from tending ewes in lamb to pasture his people Jacob and Israel his heritage:

^78:72 who did this with unselfish care and led them with a sensitive hand.

^7:21 ‘It is not those who say to me, “Lord, Lord”, who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven.

^7:22 When the day[*c] comes many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, work many miracles in your name?”

^7:23 Then I shall tell them to their faces: I have never known you; away from me, you evil men!’

^7:24 ‘Therefore, everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on rock.

^7:25 Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and hurled themselves against that house, and it did not fall: it was founded on rock.

^7:26 But everyone who listens to these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a stupid man who built his house on sand.

^7:27 Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and struck that house, and it fell; and what a fall it had!’

^7:28 Jesus had now finished what he wanted to say, and his teaching made a deep impression on the people

^7:29 because he taught them with authority, and not like their own scribes.[*d]