Jesus is the restorer –
the healer of all things and people. He has compassion on us even when we don’t
see him for who he really is. How has God healed you? Think about that as you
read these passages.
From
the Torah: Deuteronomy 31:30 – 32:43
From
the Former Prophets: 2 Kings 4:8-37
From
the Latter Prophets: Isaiah 38:1-22
From
the Books of Wisdom and Poetry: Psalm
103:1-22
From
the Late Books: Daniel 4:28-37
From
the Gospels: John 4:43-54
From
the Epistles: Philippians 2:19-30
From the Torah
And Moses recited the
words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly
of Israel:
Listen, you heavens, and I will speak;
hear, you earth, the words of my mouth.
Let my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants.
I will proclaim the name of the Lord.
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is
he.
They are corrupt and not his children;
to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation.
Is this the way you repay the Lord,
you foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator,
who made you and formed you?
Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past.
Ask your father and he will tell you,
your elders, and they will explain to you.
When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
when he divided all mankind,
he set up boundaries for the peoples
according to the number of the sons of Israel.
For the Lord’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted inheritance.
In a desert land he found him,
in a barren and howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him;
he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
like an eagle that stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
and carries them aloft.
The Lord alone led him;
no foreign god was with him.
He made him ride on the heights of the land
and fed him with the fruit of the fields.
He nourished him with honey from the rock,
and with oil from the flinty crag,
with curds and milk from herd and flock
and with fattened lambs and goats,
with choice rams of Bashan
and the finest kernels of wheat.
You drank the foaming blood of the grape.
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked;
filled with food, they became heavy and sleek.
They abandoned the God who made them
and rejected the Rock their Savior.
They made him jealous with their foreign gods
and angered him with their detestable idols.
They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God—
gods they had not known,
gods that recently appeared,
gods your ancestors did not fear.
You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.
The Lord saw this and
rejected them
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.
They made me jealous by what is no god
and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people;
I will make them angry by a nation that has no
understanding.
For a fire will be kindled by my wrath,
one that burns down to the realm of the dead below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set afire the foundations of the mountains.
“I will heap calamities on them
and spend my arrows against them.
I will send wasting famine against them,
consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts,
the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
In the street the sword will make them childless;
in their homes terror will reign.
The young men and young women will perish,
the infants and those with gray hair.
I said I would scatter them
and erase their name from human memory,
but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy,
lest the adversary misunderstand
and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed;
the Lord has not done
all this.’”
They are a nation without sense,
there is no discernment in them.
If only they were wise and would understand this
and discern what their end will be!
How could one man chase a thousand,
or two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
unless the Lord had given them up?
For their rock is not like our Rock,
as even our enemies concede.
Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom
and from the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are filled with poison,
and their clusters with bitterness.
Their wine is the venom of serpents,
the deadly poison of cobras.
“Have I not kept this in reserve
and sealed it in my vaults?
It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them.”
The Lord will
vindicate his people
and relent concerning his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
and no one is left, slave or free.
He will say: “Now where are their gods,
the rock they took refuge in,
the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up to help you!
Let them give you shelter!
“See now that I myself am he!
There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
I have wounded and I will heal,
and no one can deliver out of my hand.
I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear:
As surely as I live forever,
when I sharpen my flashing sword
and my hand grasps it in judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and repay those who hate me.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
while my sword devours flesh:
the blood of the slain and the captives,
the heads of the enemy leaders.”
Rejoice, you nations,
with his people,
for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take vengeance on his enemies
and make atonement for his land and people.
Deuteronomy
31:30–32:43
From
the Former Prophets
One day Elisha went to
Shunem. And a well-to-do woman
was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped
there to eat. She
said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy
man of God. Let’s
make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a
lamp for him. Then he can stay there
whenever he comes to us.”
One day when Elisha
came, he went up to his room and lay down there. He said to his servant Gehazi,
“Call the Shunammite.” So he
called her, and she stood before him. Elisha said to him, “Tell her, ‘You have
gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on
your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’”
She replied, “I have a
home among my own people.”
“What can be done for
her?” Elisha asked.
Gehazi said, “She has no
son, and her husband is old.”
Then Elisha said, “Call
her.” So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. “About this time next year,” Elisha said, “you will hold a
son in your arms.”
“No, my lord!” she
objected. “Please, man of God, don’t mislead your servant!”
But the woman became
pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just
as Elisha had told her.
The child grew, and one
day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers. He said to his father, “My head! My head!”
His father told a
servant, “Carry him to his mother.” After the servant had lifted him up and
carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died. She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and
went out.
She called her husband
and said, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the
man of God quickly and return.”
“Why go to him today?”
he asked. “It’s not the New Moon or the Sabbath.”
“That’s all right,” she
said.
She saddled the donkey
and said to her servant, “Lead on; don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.” So she set out and came to the man of God
at Mount Carmel.
When he saw her in the
distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! There’s the
Shunammite! Run to
meet her and ask her, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your
child all right?’”
“Everything is all
right,” she said.
When she reached the man
of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her
away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me
why.”
“Did I ask you for a
son, my lord?” she said. “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t raise my hopes’?”
Elisha said to Gehazi,
“Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run. Don’t greet anyone
you meet, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy’s
face.”
But the child’s mother
said, “As surely as the Lord lives
and as you live, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her.
Gehazi went on ahead and
laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi
went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”
When Elisha reached the
house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of
them and prayed to the Lord. Then he got on the bed and lay on the boy,
mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew
warm. Elisha turned away and
walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on
him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
Elisha summoned Gehazi
and said, “Call the Shunammite.” And he did. When she came, he said, “Take your
son.” She came in, fell at his
feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.
2
Kings 4:8-37
From the
Latter Prophets
In
those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet
Isaiah son of Amoz went to
him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in
order, because you are going to
die; you will not recover.”
Hezekiah turned his face
to the wall and prayed to the Lord, “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted
devotion and have done what is
good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: “Go and tell Hezekiah,
‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father
David, says: I have heard your
prayer and seen your tears; I will
add fifteen years to your
life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of
Assyria. I will defend this
city.
“‘This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: I will make the shadow
cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of
Ahaz.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down.
A writing of Hezekiah king of Judah after his illness and recovery:
I said, “In the prime of my life
must I go through the gates of death
and be robbed of the rest of my years?”
I said, “I will not again see the Lord himself
in the land of the living;
no
longer will I look on my fellow man,
or be with those who now dwell in this world.
Like a shepherd’s tent my house
has been pulled down and taken from me.
Like
a weaver I have rolled up my life,
and he has cut me off from the loom;
day and night you made an end of me.
I waited patiently till dawn,
but like a lion he broke all my bones;
day and night you made an end of me.
I cried like a swift or thrush,
I moaned like a mourning dove.
My
eyes grew weak as I looked to the heavens.
I am being threatened; Lord, come to my aid!”
But what can I say?
He has spoken to me, and he himself has done this.
I
will walk humbly all my years
because of this anguish of my soul.
Lord, by such things people live;
and my spirit finds life in them too.
You
restored me to health
and let me live.
Surely it was for my benefit
that I suffered such anguish.
In
your love you kept me
from the pit of destruction;
you
have put all my sins
behind your back.
For the grave cannot praise you,
death cannot sing your praise;
those
who go down to the pit
cannot hope for your faithfulness.
The living, the living—they praise you,
as I am doing today;
parents
tell their children
about your faithfulness.
The Lord will save me,
and we will sing with stringed instruments
all
the days of our lives
in the temple of the Lord.
Isaiah had said, “Prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to the
boil, and he will recover.”
Hezekiah had asked,
“What will be the sign that I
will go up to the temple of the Lord?”
Isaiah
38:1-22
From the Books of Wisdom
and Poetry
Of David.
Praise the Lord, my
soul;
all my inmost being, praise his
holy name.
Praise the Lord, my
soul,
and forget not all his
benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and
compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is
renewed like the eagle’s.
The Lord works
righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of
Israel:
The Lord is
compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger
forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our
iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those
who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our
transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of
the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no
more.
But from everlasting to everlasting
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their
children’s children—
with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his
precepts.
The Lord has
established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over
all.
Praise the Lord, you
his angels,
you mighty ones who do his
bidding,
who obey his word.
Praise the Lord, all his
heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his
will.
Praise the Lord, all his
works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the Lord,
my soul.
Psalm
103:1-22
From the Late Books
All this happened to King
Nebuchadnezzar. Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the
royal palace of Babylon, he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal
residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”
Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven,
“This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has
been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild
animals; you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until
you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and
gives them to anyone he wishes.”
Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled.
He was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the
feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.
At the end of that time, I,
Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored
and glorified him who lives forever.
His dominion is an eternal dominion;
his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth
are regarded as nothing.
He
does as he pleases
with the powers of heaven
and the peoples of the earth.
No
one can hold back his hand
or say to him: “What have you done?”
At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and
splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored
to my throne and became even greater than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and
exalt and glorify the King of
heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
Daniel
4:28-37
From the Gospels
After the two days he left for Galilee. (Now Jesus himself had
pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.) When he arrived in
Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem
at the Passover Festival, for
they also had been there.
Once more he visited
Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official
whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that
Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and
heal his son, who was close to death.
“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you
will never believe.”
The royal official said,
“Sir, come down before my child dies.”
“Go,” Jesus replied, “your
son will live.”
The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on
the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to
the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the
afternoon, the fever left him.”
Then the father realized
that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your
son will live.” So he
and his whole household believed.
This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to
Galilee.
John
4:43-54
From
the Epistles
I hope in the Lord Jesus
to send Timothy to you
soon, that I also may be
cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him, who will show
genuine concern for your welfare. For everyone looks out for their own
interests, not
those of Jesus Christ. But you
know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the
gospel. I hope, therefore, to
send him as soon as I see how things go with me. And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.
But I think it is
necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent
to take care of my needs. For he
longs for all of you and is
distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God
had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon
sorrow. Therefore I am all the
more eager to send him, so that
when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. So then, welcome him in the Lord with great
joy, and honor people like him, because
he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the
help you yourselves could not give me.
Philippians
2:19-30
