Today's Readings and Stuff -- Friday, 15 November 2019

A slightly less cold day today.  Slightly.  Gave a bit of a break from the low teens we'd seen her.  A brief one to be sure, but it let me mostly finish the installation of the interior plastic film on most of the previously undone ones.  We hope that helps a little bit anyway  Tentatively -- very tentatively at that -- the brother-in-law will be here tomorrow (or Sunday) to do more on the installation of our bathtub so that we can have an alternative to the sink sponge baths or the "take  your life in your hands" use of our shower tub with the cracked and broken floor.  Hope to know more in the morning.  It would be very very nice, really.But we shall see.  Not the biggest issue in the history of the world.

Song of the day entry.  Some may not know the name of Lynda Randle.  She made popular a good one, "God On The Mountain".  Some of us know all too well the collision of those wonderful moments in the Presence of the Lord, and then, not long afterwards, the collapse and crash into the very not wonderful realities of this world.  It's hard, it always has been.  But He is still there.


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Ezekiel 29

1In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

2Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt:

3Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

4But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.

5And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.

6And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.

7When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.

8Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee.

9And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the Lord: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.

10Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.

11No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

12And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

13Yet thus saith the Lord God; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered:

14And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom.

15It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.

16And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord God.

17And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

18Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyre, for the service that he had served against it:

19Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army.

20I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord God.

21In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am the Lord.

Ezekiel 30

1The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying,

2Son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Howl ye, Woe worth the day!

3For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.

4And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down.

5Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.

6Thus saith the Lord; They also that uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord God.

7And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.

8And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and when all her helpers shall be destroyed.

9In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid, and great pain shall come upon them, as in the day of Egypt: for, lo, it cometh.

10Thus saith the Lord God; I will also make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.

11He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought to destroy the land: and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain.

12And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the Lord have spoken it.

13Thus saith the Lord God; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Memphis; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.

14And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments in No.

15And I will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No.

16And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Memphis shall have distresses daily.

17The young men of Aven and of Pi–beseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity.

18At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity.

19Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the Lord.

20And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first month, in the seventh day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

21Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and, lo, it shall not be bound up to be healed, to put a roller to bind it, to make it strong to hold the sword.

22Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, the strong, and that which was broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.

23And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

24And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand: but I will break Pharaoh's arms, and he shall groan before him with the groanings of a deadly wounded man.

25But I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall stretch it out upon the land of Egypt.

26And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the Lord.

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2nd Peter 2

1But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

2And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

3And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

4For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

5And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

6And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

7And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

8(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

9The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

10But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

11Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.

12But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

13And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

14Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

15Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

16But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet.

17These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

18For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

19While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

20For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

21For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

22But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.