Nov 19, 2022
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
destroyed,
but not by the swords of men.
The sword of God will strike them,
and they will panic and flee.
That happened on the night recorded in 2Kings 19 where the Lord put to death 185,000 men. Quote,
“When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere.”
2CORINTHIANS 13:
Yesterday we read the reasons why Paul boasted about his
weaknesses— something that is utterly unintuitive for worldly
people to understand. Then Paul continued to speak about what he
hoped NOT to find on his upcoming visit to the Corinthian
believers.
Chapter 13 is another good place to tout the virtues of a good meaning based translation. Paul uses the word ‘test’ in three different senses in this chapter. This makes several verses hard to understand in a literal translation. The NLT and the GNT have done a good job helping the reader understand the different senses in which Paul used that word.
Let’s continue from the last paragraph of chapter 12.
NLT Translation notes:
2Cor. 13:5 Examine yourselves to see if [you really fully
believe//your faith is genuine]. Test yourselves. Surely you know
that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of
[fully believing in Christ//genuine faith].
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.