Today's Reading

¹"For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up," says the Lord of hosts, "that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

²But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out, and leap like calves of the stall.

³You shall tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make," says the Lord of hosts.

⁴"Remember the Law of Moses my servant, which I commanded to him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and ordinances.

⁵Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

⁶He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

¹A great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

²She was with child. She screamed out in pain, laboring to give birth.

³Another sign was seen in heaven. Behold, a great fiery red serpent, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns.

⁴His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth. The serpent stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.

⁵She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. Her child was caught up to God, and to his throne.

⁶The woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that there they may nourish her one thousand two hundred sixty days.

⁷There was war in the sky. Michael and his angels made war on the serpent. The serpent and his angels made war.

⁸They did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any more in heaven.

⁹The great serpent was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

¹⁰I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now is come the salvation, the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ; for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night.

¹¹They overcame him because of the Lamb's blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They did not love their life, even to death.

¹²Therefore rejoice, heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the land and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time."

¹³When the serpent saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

¹⁴Two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, so that she might be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

¹⁵The serpent spewed water out of his mouth after the woman like a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream.

¹⁶The earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river which the serpent spewed out of his mouth.

¹⁷The serpent grew angry with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

¹⁸He stood on the sand of the sea.

¹My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you;

²So as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;

³Yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding;

⁴If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures:

⁵then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.

⁶For the Lord gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

⁷He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity;

⁸that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his holy ones.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.

¹⁰For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,

¹²to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things;

¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

¹⁴who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil;

¹⁵who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths:

¹⁶To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words;

¹⁷who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God:

¹⁸for her house leads down to death, her paths to the dead.

¹⁹None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life:

²⁰that you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.

²²But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.