Today's Readings and Stuff -- Thursday, 12 December 2019

Loong day.  Over at the next-door-niece's around sunrise or so.  "Watching" the Great-Nephew while dad sleeps, mom runs over to the school to do the "involved mother of a student" thing and then do the "working from a home office" thing. Got home an hour before sunset, had a real late lunch.  Sounds uninspiring and unimportant, and perhaps it is.  But it gives us contact with the kids and the family, and that in itself is worth a great deal,  Perhaps we're making a difference of some sort.
We're clear of "watching" duty tomorrow, so -- Lord willing --  I will be borrowing their ladder and clambering up to put some silicone type stuff into a leak spot in the roof corner where we have some water getting into that bathroom we've been working on.  Now if we can only get the rest of that complete:  brother-in-law took the drain elbow with him to arrange an adatper-extension for the one leg of it.  Last week.    Hoping he makes it back and we can get this done.
And we were reminded that we have a Commanded Attendance on Saturday evening for the 7th birthday party of next-door great- niece, the one named after Wife.  Fortunately, Wife had found a good deal on something to use as a gift some months ago, so we have something to take.




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Amos 7

1Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.

2And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

3The Lord repented for this: It shall not be, saith the Lord.

4Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.

5Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

6The Lord repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord God.

7Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

8And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:

9And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

10Then Amaziah the priest of Beth–el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

11For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

12Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:

13But prophesy not again any more at Beth–el: for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court.

14Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit:

15And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

16Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.

17Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

Amos 8

1Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.

2And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

3And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.

4Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

5Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

6That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

7The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

8Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.

9And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

11Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:

12And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

13In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.

14They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beer–sheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

Amos 9

1I saw the Lord standing upon the altar: and he said, Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake: and cut them in the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: he that fleeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered.

2Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down:

3And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:

4And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.

5And the Lord God of hosts is he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.

6It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name.

7Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?

8Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord.

9For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

10All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

11In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:

12That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the Lord that doeth this.

13Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

14And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

15And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God.

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Revelations 10

1And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:

2And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,

3And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

4And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

5And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,

6And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

7But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

8And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.

9And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.

10And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.

11And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.