Word for today: But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself. Psalm 49:15 NIV
A Christian’s goal should be to create the Kingdom of God here on earth, as it is in Heaven. Not only, to get to Heaven.
Watch this to start your day.
Reflection for Today.
To finish the Bible in one year, Read Job 38,39,40,41,42, & Titus 3
Old Testament Reading for today – Listen or read it for yourself:
Also read the verses, if you like.
Job 38
1 Then from the heart of the tempest Yahweh gave Job his answer. He said:
2 Who is this, obscuring my intentions with his ignorant words?
3 Brace yourself like a fighter; I am going to ask the questions, and you are to inform me!
4 Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Tell me, since you are so well-informed!
5 Who decided its dimensions, do you know? Or who stretched the measuring line across it?
6 What supports its pillars at their bases? Who laid its cornerstone
7 to the joyful concert of the morning stars and unanimous acclaim of the sons of God?
8 Who pent up the sea behind closed doors when it leapt tumultuous from the womb,
9 when I wrapped it in a robe of mist and made black clouds its swaddling bands;
10 when I cut out the place I had decreed for it and imposed gates and a bolt?
11 ‘Come so far,’ I said, ‘and no further; here your proud waves must break!’
12 Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post,
13 to grasp the earth by its edges and shake the wicked out of it?
14 She turns it as red as a clay seal, she tints it as though it were a dress,
15 stealing the light from evil-doers and breaking the arm raised to strike.
16 Have you been right down to the sources of the sea and walked about at the bottom of the Abyss?
17 Have you been shown the gates of Death, have you seen the janitors of the Shadow dark as death?
18 Have you an inkling of the extent of the earth? Tell me all about it if you have!
19 Which is the way to the home of the Light, and where does darkness live? –
20 You could then show them the way to their proper places, you could put them on the path home again!
21 If you do know, you must have been born when they were, you must be very old by now!
22 Have you visited the place where the snow is stored? Have you seen the stores of hail,
23 which I keep for times of distress, for days of battle and war?
24 From which direction does the lightning fork, where in the world does the east wind blow itself out?
25 Who bores a channel for the downpour or clears the way for the rolling thunder
26 so that rain may fall on lands where no one lives, and the deserts void of human dwelling,
27 to meet the needs of the lonely wastes and make grass sprout on the thirsty ground?
28 Has the rain a father? Who begets the dewdrops?
29 What womb brings forth the ice, who gives birth to the frost of heaven,
30 when the waters grow hard as stone and the surface of the deep congeals?
31 Can you fasten the harness of the Pleiades, or untie Orion’s bands?
32 Can you guide the Crown season by season and show the Bear and its cubs which way to go?
33 Have you grasped the celestial laws? Could you make their writ run on the earth?
34 Can your voice carry as far as the clouds and make the pent-up waters do your bidding?
35 Will lightning flashes come at your command and answer, ‘Here we are’?
36 Who endowed the ibis with wisdom and gave the cock his intelligence?
37 Whose skill details every cloud and tilts the water-skins of heaven
38 until the dust solidifies and the cracks in the ground close up?
39 Do you go hunting prey for the lioness; do you satisfy the hunger of young lions
40 where they crouch in their den, waiting eagerly in the bushes?
41 Who makes provision for the raven when his little ones cry out to God craning their necks in search of food?
Job 39
1 Do you know when mountain goats give birth? Have you ever watched deer in labour?
2 Have you ever counted the months that they carry their young? Do you know when they give birth?
3 They crouch to drop their young, they get rid of their burdens
4 and the calves, having grown big and strong, go off into the desert and never come back to them.
5 Who has given the wild donkey his freedom, who has undone the harness of the brayer?
6 I have given him the wastelands as his home, the salt plain as his habitat.
7 He scorns the turmoil of the town, obeys no donkey-man’s shouts.
8 The mountains are the pastures that he ranges in quest of anything green.
9 Is the wild ox willing to serve you or spend a night beside your manger?
10 If you tie a rope round his neck will he harrow the furrows for you?
11 Can you rely on his massive strength and leave him to do your heavy work?
12 Can you depend on him to come home and pile your grain on your threshing-floor?
13 Can the wing of the ostrich be compared with the plumage of stork or falcon?
14 She leaves her eggs on the ground with only earth to warm them;
15 forgetting that a foot may tread on them or a wild animal crush them.
16 Cruel to her chicks as if they were not hers, little she cares if her labour goes for nothing.
17 God, you see, has deprived her of wisdom and given her no share of intelligence.
18 Yet, if she bestirs herself to use her height, she can make fools of horse and rider too.
19 Are you the one who makes the horse so brave and covers his neck with flowing mane?
20 Do you make him leap like a grasshopper? His haughty neighing inspires terror.
21 Exultantly he paws the soil of the valley, and charges the battle-line in all his strength.
22 He laughs at fear; he is afraid of nothing, he recoils before no sword.
23 On his back the quiver rattles, the flashing spear and javelin.
24 Trembling with impatience, he eats up the miles; when the trumpet sounds, there is no holding him.
25 At each trumpet blast he neighs exultantly. He scents the battle from afar, the thundering of the commanders and the war cry.
26 Is it your wisdom that sets the hawk flying when he spreads his wings to travel south?
27 Does the eagle soar at your command to make her eyrie in the heights?
28 She spends her nights among the crags with a needle of rock as her fortress,
29 from which she watches for prey, fixing it with her far-ranging eye.
30 Even her young drink blood; where anyone has been killed, she is there.
Job 40
Still speaking to Job, Yahweh said:
2 Is Yahweh’s opponent going to give way? Has God’s critic thought up an answer?
4 My words have been frivolous: what can I reply? I had better lay my hand over my mouth.
5 I have spoken once, I shall not speak again; I have spoken twice, I have nothing more to say.
6 Yahweh gave Job his answer from the heart of the tempest. He said:
7 Brace yourself like a fighter, I am going to ask the questions, and you are to inform me!
8 Do you really want to reverse my judgement, put me in the wrong and yourself in the right?
9 Has your arm the strength of God’s, can your voice thunder as loud?
10 Come on, display your majesty and grandeur, robe yourself in splendour and glory.
11 Let the fury of your anger burst forth, humble the haughty at a glance!
12 At a glance, bring down all the proud, strike down the wicked where they stand.
13 Bury the lot of them in the ground, shut them, every one, in the Dungeon.
14 And I shall be the first to pay you homage, since your own right hand is strong enough to save you.
15 But look at Behemoth, my creature, just as you are! He feeds on greenstuff like the ox,
16 but what strength he has in his loins, what power in his stomach muscles!
17 His tail is as stiff as a cedar, the sinews of his thighs are tightly knit.
18 His bones are bronze tubes, his frame like forged iron.
19 He is the first of the works of God. His Maker threatened him with the sword,
20 forbidding him the mountain regions and all the wild animals that play there.
21 Under the lotus he lies, he hides among the reeds in the swamps.
22 The leaves of the lotus give him shade, the willows by the stream shelter him.
23 If the river overflows, he does not worry: Jordan might come up to his mouth, but he would not care.
24 Who is going to catch him by the eyes or put poles through his nose?
25 Leviathan, too! Can you catch him with a fish-hook or hold his tongue down with a rope?
26 Can you put a cane through his nostrils or pierce his jaw with a hook?
27 Will he plead lengthily with you, addressing you in diffident tones?
28 Will he strike a bargain with you to become your slave for life?
29 Will you make a pet of him, like a bird, keep him on a lead to amuse your little girls?
30 Is he to be sold by the fishing guild and then retailed by merchants?
31 Riddle his hide with darts? Or his head with fishing spears?
32 You have only to lay a finger on him never to forget the struggle or risk it again!
Job 41
1 Any hope you might have would be futile, the mere sight of him would overwhelm you.
2 When roused, he grows ferocious, who could ever stand up to him?
3 Who has ever attacked him with impunity? No one beneath all heaven!
4 Next I will talk of his limbs and describe his matchless strength-
5 who can undo the front of his tunic or pierce the double armour of his breastplate?
6 Who dare open the gates of his mouth? Terror reigns round his teeth!
7 His back is like rows of shields, sealed with a stone seal,
8 touching each other so close that no breath could pass between,
9 sticking to one another making an impervious whole.
10 His sneezes radiate light, his eyes are like the eyelashes of the dawn.
11 From his mouth come fiery torches, sparks of fire fly out of it.
12 His nostrils belch smoke like a cauldron boiling on the fire.
13 His breath could kindle coals, flame issues from his mouth.
14 His strength resides in his neck, violence leaps before him as he goes.
15 The strips of his flesh are jointed together, firmly set in and immovable.
16 His heart is as hard as rock unyielding as the lower millstone.
17 When he stands up, the waves take fright and the billows of the sea retreat.
18 Sword may strike but will not stick in him, no more will spear, javelin or lance.
19 Iron means no more to him than straw, nor bronze than rotten wood.
20 No arrow can make him flee, a sling-stone tickles him like hay.
21 Club seems to him like straw, he laughs at the whirring javelin.
22 He has sharp potsherds underneath, and moves across the slime like a harrow.
23 He makes the depths seethe like a cauldron, he makes the sea fume like a scent burner.
24 Behind him he leaves a glittering wake — a white fleece seems to float on the deeps.
25 He has no equal on earth, being created without fear.
26 He looks the haughtiest in the eye; of all the lordly beasts he is king.
Job 42
1 This was the answer Job gave to Yahweh:
2 I know that you are all-powerful: what you conceive, you can perform.
3 I was the man who misrepresented your intentions with my ignorant words. You have told me about great works that I cannot understand, about marvels which are beyond me, of which I know nothing.
4 (Listen, please, and let me speak: I am going to ask the questions, and you are to inform me.)
5 Before, I knew you only by hearsay but now, having seen you with my own eyes,
6 I retract what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes.
7 When Yahweh had finished saying this to Job, he said to Eliphaz of Teman, ‘I burn with anger against you and your two friends, for not having spoken correctly about me as my servant Job has done.
8 So now find seven bullocks and seven rams, and take them back with you to my servant Job and make a burnt offering for yourselves, while Job, my servant, offers prayers for you. I shall show him favour and shall not inflict my displeasure on you for not having spoken about me correctly, as my servant Job had done.’
9 Eliphaz of Teman, Bildad of Shuah and Zophar of Naamath went away to do as Yahweh had ordered, and Yahweh listened to Job with favour.
10 And Yahweh restored Job’s condition, while Job was interceding for his friends. More than that, Yahweh gave him double what he had before.
11 And all his brothers and all his sisters and all his friends of former times came to see him. Over dinner in his house, they showed their sympathy and comforted him for all the evils Yahweh had inflicted on him. Each of them gave him a silver coin, and each a gold ring.
12 Yahweh blessed Job’s latter condition even more than his former one. He came to own fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she-donkeys.
13 He had seven sons and three daughters;
14 his first daughter he called ‘Turtledove’, the second ‘Cassia’ and the third ‘Mascara’.
15 Throughout the land there were no women as beautiful as the daughters of Job. And their father gave them inheritance rights like their brothers.
16 After this, Job lived for another one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and his children’s children to the fourth generation.
17 Then, old and full of days, Job died.
Titus 3
1 Remind them to be obedient to the officials in authority; to be ready to do good at every opportunity;
2 not to go slandering other people but to be peaceable and gentle, and always polite to people of all kinds.
3 There was a time when we too were ignorant, disobedient and misled and enslaved by different passions and dissipations; we lived then in wickedness and malice, hating each other and hateful ourselves.
4 But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour for humanity were revealed,
5 it was not because of any upright actions we had done ourselves; it was for no reason except his own faithful love that he saved us, by means of the cleansing water of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit
6 which he has so generously poured over us through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
7 so that, justified by his grace, we should become heirs in hope of eternal life.
8 This is doctrine that you can rely on. I want you to be quite uncompromising in teaching all this, so that those who now believe in God may keep their minds constantly occupied in doing good works. All this is good, and useful for everybody.
9 But avoid foolish speculations, and those genealogies, and the quibbles and disputes about the Law — they are useless and futile.
10 If someone disputes what you teach, then after a first and a second warning, have no more to do with him:
11 you will know that anyone of that sort is warped and is self-condemned as a sinner.
12 As soon as I have sent Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to join me at Nicopolis, where I have decided to spend the winter.
13 Help eagerly on their way Zenas the lawyer and Apollos, and make sure they have everything they need.
14 All our people must also learn to occupy themselves in doing good works for their practical needs, and not to be unproductive.
15 All those who are with me send their greetings. Greetings to those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all.
Sermons and explanations for the above chapters.
Book of Job commentary click here
Book of Titus Chapter One Sermon click here
Catholic Daily Reflections
Reading 1, Amos 7:10-17
10 Amaziah the priest of Bethel then sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel as follows, ‘Amos is plotting against you in the heart of the House of Israel; the country cannot tolerate his speeches.
11 For this is what Amos says, “Jeroboam is going to die by the sword, and Israel will go into captivity far from its native land.” ‘
12 To Amos himself Amaziah said, ‘Go away, seer, take yourself off to Judah, earn your living there, and there you can prophesy!
13 But never again will you prophesy at Bethel, for this is a royal sanctuary, a national temple.’
14 ‘I am not a prophet,’ Amos replied to Amaziah, ‘nor do I belong to a prophetic brotherhood. I am merely a herdsman and dresser of sycamore-figs.
15 But Yahweh took me as I followed the flock, and Yahweh said to me, “Go and prophesy to my people Israel.”
16 So now listen to what Yahweh says: “You say: Do not prophesy against Israel, do not foretell doom on the House of Isaac!”
17 Very well, this is what Yahweh says, “Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be parcelled out by measuring line, and you yourself will die on polluted soil and Israel will go into captivity far from its own land!”‘
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 19:8, 9, 10, 11
8 The precepts of Yahweh are honest, joy for the heart; the commandment of Yahweh is pure, light for the eyes.
9 The fear of Yahweh is pure, lasting for ever; the judgements of Yahweh are true, upright, every one,
10 more desirable than gold, even than the finest gold; his words are sweeter than honey, that drips from the comb.
11 Thus your servant is formed by them; observing them brings great reward.
Previous Daily Bible Study Blogs
Book of Job , Outline Summary, Outline Book of 1 Timothy (we are studying these books presently)
Audio Drama: Old Testament New Testament Each book is read in its entirety. You can listen to the bible, one book at a time in contemporary English.
Dr. Myles Munroe
I am including a video by Dr. Myles Munroe, I’ve listened to him back in the nineties, and rediscovered him recently. Now his perspective seems to be a good way to also look at scripture. In Pursuit of Purpose – Book Highlights
Sermons Rosary Prayers Catholic Answers
Did Mary have other children? No, Listen here
Called to Communion
Pray the Rosary
Rosary Mysteries
The following 4 videos are the 4 Mysteries that we pray on certain days of the week. I like these videos, because I can pray it alone, with only the images, or go along with the sound. The images help me to focus on the particular mystery that I am contemplating as I say the Hail Mary on each bead.
Joyful Mysteries
Luminous Mysteries
Sorrowful Mysteries
Glorious Mysteries
Prayers of the Rosary
Links to “How to pray the rosary” Popular Catholic Prayers
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried,
He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
(this prayer is optional and may be said after all Glory Be to the Fathers…..)
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell.
Lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are in most need of thy mercy.
Console the souls in Purgatory, particularly those most abandoned. Amen
Hail Mary,
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
The Hail, Holy Queen
Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!
That we maybe made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Closing Prayer
O God, whose only begotten Son, by His life, death, and resurrection, has purchased for us the rewards of eternal salvation.
Grant, we beseech Thee, that while meditating on these mysteries of the most holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
that we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(The Fatima Prayer:)
Most Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – I adore thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference’s whereby He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.
Prayer to St. Michael
Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do you, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
Thurzo Gizella Bible Study 
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