Today’s Podcast
Today’s Scriptures
Today’s Bible reading plans include:
Ready – Job 27
Set – Job 27; Mark 15
Go! – Job 26-27; Mark 15-16
Job 27
1 Job continued.
2 Job: By God—who lives and has deprived me of justice,
the Highest One who has also embittered my soul—
3 I make this proclamation:
that, while there is life in me,
While the breath of that selfsame God is in my nostrils,
4 My lips will not let lies escape them,
and my tongue will not form deceit.
5 So I will never concede that you three are right.
Until the day I die, I will not abandon my integrity just to appease you.
6 On the contrary, I’ll assert my innocence and never let it go;
my heart will not mock my past or my future.
7 May my enemy be counted as the wicked
and my adversary as the unjust.
8 For what hope does he who is sullied and impure have
once God lops him off from life and requires his soul?
9 Will God listen to his cry
when he is overtaken by distress?
10 Will he have made the Highest One his pleasure after the fact?
Will he have marked the seasons with his calls to God once it is too late?
11 Let me show you what I have learned of God’s power.
I assure you I will not cover over the true nature of the Highest One’s ways.
12 Look, you have all seen it—seen the same things I have seen here.
Why then all this vain nonsense?
13 Indeed, Zophar, listen closely, for what the wicked of humanity will inherit from God.
This is the heritage the Highest One bequeaths to those who oppress:
14 If the children of the wicked multiply,
they meet their end at the blade of the sword.
And even if they are fat with surplus,
the descendants of the wicked will be starved for bread.
15 Those who survive will fall to disease and be buried;
many of their widows will not mourn their deaths.
16 Though he pile up money as if it were common dirt
and clothing in heaps like mounds of clay,
17 What he may prepare, the righteous will wear;
the silver he sets aside, the innocent will divide.
18 He builds his house doomed to impermanence—
like the moth’s cocoon,
like the field watchman’s lean-to that is dismantled after the harvest.
19 He lies down to sleep a wealthy man,
but never again,
For when he opens his eyes to morning,
all is gone.
20 Terrors overtake him as if they were floodwaters;
the tempest snatches him away in the dead of night.
21 Indeed, the sultry east wind lifts him up and away.
He is gone, swept off the place he knew as his own.
22 It will have blown against him pitilessly,
and he tries to flee from its fast-closing hand.
23 As a final humiliation, it claps its hands against him as a man would—
sneering, hissing at him as he leaves.
Today’s Devotional
From today’s background scripture God might say:
It would have been easy for Job to satisfy his friends by just lying to them and making up some wrong he had done. He could have gotten rid of their incessant nagging and they would have left him alone if he just owned up to something, anything. But Job wouldn’t lie and their wasn’t anything in his past he had not given to Me that needed forgiveness. His relationship with Me was pure. Job refused to admit to something he had not done. His integrity was too important to him to give it away to these so called friends.
Job also knew what happens to those who did not live with integrity. Those who practiced deceit in little or big things cannot be trusted with My sacred things. And all the material things that might seem so important now will disappear. No one takes anything with them to the grave. But all will receive their reward from Me at the judgment. Those that lived a life of integrity with Me will gain much. Those who lived without Me and without integrity will lose everything.
Job talks about that as he shares this discourse with Zophar. In this materialistic age in which most think the person with the most toys wins, you should take a lesson from Job’s wisdom. Life is short, I determine the rewards and punishments when this life is over. The things you have now will not go with you to the next. Think about what is important. You’ll find it has nothing to do with material things, but with relationships, character, integrity. Job had it right. Live a life of integrity. You won’t go wrong doing so.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.