The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with despair, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them. – Ezekiel 7:27

Today's Scripture Reading (July 31, 2026): Ezekiel 7

There is a "WKRP in Cincinnati" episode where the city of Cincinnati is about to be hit by a tornado. The radio stations, including WKRP, are asked to get the word out about the coming storm and what to do in case a tornado strikes in your area, but Les Nessman, WKRP's news anchor, does not have a script to follow concerning significant weather disruptions. Nessman's boss remembers that Les did pen a script about a possible communist attack on the city. (I mean, in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is the more obvious danger, an attack by communists or the possibility of a tornado?) So, on the boss's instructions, Les reads his warning bulletin on the attack of the communists and substitutes the word tornado every time he sees the word communist. Although the episode's subject matter is deadly serious, the resulting news release is amusing, and at least once, Les gets to utter the phrase "those godless red tornados."

Where I live, we are in the middle of storm season. I am hearing warnings of tornado clusters. (If Les were writing the news release, maybe we would get to hear the phrase "godless red tornado clusters.”) And there have already been deaths and damage caused by the season's tornadoes. However, today is also the thirty-ninth anniversary of an F4 tornado that ripped through the area on July 31, 1987. Part of the destructive outcome of this tornado was the result of the sixty-five minutes that the tornado stayed on the ground. Hurricanes are also brewing over the warm waters of the world's oceans, and all of this is to be expected. However, in recent years, it seems that the storms have been getting worse.

One writer recently commented that we need to start thinking about removing the phrase "Act of God" to describe these storms. It might be that Les Nessman is actually right. The storms that are attacking are godless. While this planet has always suffered from severe storms, the magnitude of the storms we are facing today might have less to do with an unpredictable "Act of God" than it has to do with being the very predictable result of the things that we have done to our planet. We are the ones who have decimated the earth's ability to withstand the various storms on the planet, and the result has been that these storms have become more threatening, more dangerous, and have caused much greater loss of property and life than ever before. The only ones we can blame for this outcome are ourselves.

Ezekiel writes one of the scariest lines of the Bible in this passage. Writing concerning the downfall of the Kingdom of Judah, Ezekiel says that God will "deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards [he] will judge them." Basically, God has decided to leave the people to their own devices. And the same comment might be applied to us. In the same way that God allowed the rulers of Judah to destroy their nation so that they would finally recognize that God is God over all, maybe he has allowed us to destroy our planet so that we will recognize the same thing. There is a bit of a strange epitaph that could be added here. It is not in the beauty that we recognize God (a beautiful sunrise is never called an "Act of God," although I believe that it is.) It is in the storms that we see God. And I think that is sad, but deep down I know that it is also our choice.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 8

Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them … - Ezekiel 6:2

Today's Scripture Reading (July 30, 2026): Ezekiel 6

In 1842, Edgar Allan Poe published his short story "The Mask of the Red Death" (now better known by the slightly different title "The Masque of the Red Death"). The story follows the adventures of Prince Prospero as he tries to avoid a plague known as the "Red Death." Prospero plans to hide with his nobles inside the walls of his Abbey. While death reigns in the countryside, the prince and his nobles hide safely behind the walls of the Abbey. According to Poe's story, one night Prospero decides to hold a masquerade party. But as the party progresses, a visitor appears in the room disguised as a victim of the Red Death. Prospero confronts the stranger, but there is no substance to him. However, as a direct result of the contact that Prospero has with this apparition, Prospero dies, and in short order so do all of the nobles who had gathered in the Abbey. The moral of the story is that, in reality, there is no way to avoid a plague, and it is the height of foolishness to believe you can.

No one really knows what the Red Death represents, but some interesting suggestions have been made. Maybe one of the most interesting ideas is that the Red Death was Poe's representation of the disease consumption, or what we now know as tuberculosis. The argument is that Poe had extensive experience with the disease. Poe's mother, step-mother, and brother had all died of tuberculosis, and at the time of the writing of the Red Death, Poe's wife was suffering from the disease. It is thought that Poe himself was in denial about the disease's finality, but that, deep down, he might have known the truth, which Poe understood and revealed in his writing about the Red Death.

Ezekiel is commanded to set himself against the mountains of Israel. It was in these mountains that Israel found their security. It was there that they had sacrificed to the false gods. It was there that they had built their cities, making them hard to attack. The mountains were the walls behind which Judah had tried to hide, secure in the thought that the mountains would protect them. Judah was in denial of what seemed to be so apparent to everyone else who was watching, that the nation was about to fall, and the mountains couldn't save them any more than the walls of the Abbey could save Prospero and his friends. Judah had placed their faith in the mountains, and in the end, it would be the mountains that revealed the stupidity of the nation's plan.   

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 7

 

Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you. – Ezekiel 5:7

Today's Scripture Reading (July 29, 2026): Ezekiel 5

As the Nazi Party began to take hold of Germany in the 1930's, it quickly became apparent that the political structure of the nation was being set up for a conflict with the Christian Church. Adolf Hitler was willing to take steps beginning with a mediating position concerning the church. Still, ultimately, Hitler believed that Christianity and all other religions were incompatible with the National Socialism espoused by Hitler's Nazi Party. The problem, for Hitler, was that Germany had strong Christian roots. So, the only response for the Nazi's was to change Christianity.

The plan began by restricting the church's teaching. Nazi racism meant that Christianity had to make a clean break with its Jewish roots. The attack on the Jewish basis for Christianity appears to have had two main focal points. First, the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) had to be removed from Christian teaching. So, Hitler adopted a position similar to the position that the heretic Marcion had held in the second century; everything Jewish had to be removed from the Christian Bible. The second attack was found in the Nazi accusation that the Jews bore the guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus. What more could be expected from what Hitler believed was an inferior people? But there was a third line of attack. Quietly, Adolf Hitler was portrayed as the new Messiah: the new Jesus. And the specter of a "Positive Christianity," one dominated by the policies of National Socialism, rose within the nation.

The unfortunate truth was that many Christians seemed to be willing to make the shift from a historical Christianity to a Nazi-dominated version of the Christian faith. But not all Christians made the switch. A remnant of the confessing church remained active in the nation, and leaders like Dietrich Bonhoeffer kept the image of the Biblical Christ fresh in the minds of those they encountered. But for others, it seems that Jesus' message of love was all too easily exchanged for the Nazi-dominated Messiah characterized by hate. Knowing what Christ had demanded, they decided to go in a different direction. And the truth that the world discovered as the Second World War ended was that the Nazi's had not only violated the teachings of Jesus, but they had not even lived up to the moral standards of nations that had never accepted the teachings of Christ.

God warns the nation of Judah that their sins were greater than those of the other nations because, although they knew what God had demanded of them, they had decided not to keep his decrees and follow his instructions. Not only did they fail to measure up to the instructions of God, but they also did not even live up to the morality of the pagan nations that surrounded them. For God, that was unacceptable. It was then, and it remains unacceptable in modern times. God demands more of us. The disturbing truth is that the church still seems too willing to exchange the message of Jesus of love for one based on hate. In doing so, we continue to reject the demands of God, and we fail to live up to the moral standards of even our secular world. And God remains unimpressed by our moral ineptitude. 

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 6

Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the people of Israel. After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. – Ezekiel 4:4-6

Today's Scripture Reading (July 28, 2026): Ezekiel 4

The more I deal with broken relationships, the more I wonder whether we have any relationships at all. I mean, we assume, maybe I should say that I assume, that we mean what it is that we say. We want to be assured that words, in whatever medium we might find them, mean something. However, in broken relationships, words that have been spoken often don't carry the meaning we think they should. Maybe the classic example is when one partner tells the other that the relationship is over. Often, admittedly not always, what is meant is that the one wants the partner to fight for the relationship and not just give up. But too often, we quit, thinking this is the required action. The truth is that words carry a message, but often that message is veiled and hard to understand. Maybe the clearest statement of what we really feel is displayed through what we do.

Ezekiel seems to be the master of speaking through his actions. And this passage is no exception. Ezekiel does not speak with words; he speaks with his actions. Unfortunately, separated by time as much as we are, we often miss the message. Ezekiel starts his message by lying on his left side for 390 days. Ancient peoples often oriented themselves to face the rising sun, or the east. Therefore, the left would be the north. Spending 390 days on his left side would indicate the time spent by the Northern tribe of Israel in their sin. However, 390 is also a significant number. Forty is the Hebrew number or symbol for punishment. Israel spent forty years in their desert wanderings because of their lack of trust and obedience to God. Lashings or beatings were often administered with the instruction that the one being punished was to receive forty stripes less one, or thirty-nine. Since Ezekiel is lying on his left side for Israel, the math is pretty simple. It is thirty-nine times the ten tribes of Israel; forty less one for each tribe. It is an illustration that repeats something the prophets have spoken of a few times: the northern ten tribes of Israel may be missing, but they are not forgotten, nor is God through with them. The Northern tribes would still have a role to play in the future that God was setting up.

Ezekiel lies on his right side for forty days. Following the same imagery we used for the Northern tribes, we find that the action pertains to the punishment of the Southern Kingdom, which had become dominated by one tribe, Judah, even though Judah consisted of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. The southern kingdom retained the name of that one, dominant tribe. But, interestingly, Judah was not to suffer the normal forty minus one – they were to suffer the full forty. The reason might be simply that their punishment was fully upon them. Judah would have felt the coming destruction of the city of Jerusalem and of the Temple as consisting of the full punishment of God. This time, it would seem, God was holding nothing back.

But often this seems to be where our analysis stops. Maybe the most significant aspect of the story is often left unmentioned: that Ezekiel bears the punishment for both the northern Kingdom of Israel and its southern counterpart, Judah. And in this, he becomes a type of Christ, and the image he portrays becomes a forerunner of the sacrifice that Jesus will make on behalf of all the people of the world. And Jesus would once again bear the full punishment for our sins; he would give his very life.      

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 5

 

You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and strange language, but to the people of Israel—Ezekiel 3:5

 

Today's Scripture Reading (July 27, 2026): Ezekiel 3

A while back, I read an article by Brian McLaren about our responsibility to creation. McLaren starts off the article by describing where he was. 

RIGHT NOW, I'M thigh-deep in muck. Clad in hip waders, I'm slogging through a spring-fed bog in northern Maryland. I'm surrounded by tussock sedge, alder, jewelweed, skunk cabbage, and swamp rose. And I'm having a great time (Brian McLaren)

At that time, McLaren had been part of a volunteer team for a couple of days each year that studied and tried to protect the North American Bog Turtle, the rarest turtle in our part of the world. But as he tells his story of his search for the turtle, he also begins to describe his own disappointment in a Christian Church that does not seem to care about protecting the ecology of our world. In fact, he openly points to Christians as part of the problem. Unfortunately, he is right. We have become enamored with an escapist theology that preaches that this world will one day be thrown into the trash pile, and we will simply escape to somewhere else. Yet, in Genesis 1, God looked at creation and called it good, and in the end, he called it very good. Why would he want to throw all of it away when time has been completed?

Baby Bog Turtle

And it is not just our ecology that is taking the brunt of our negligence. Evangelically, we have carried the same carelessness into our practices, often going all over the world to talk about the "love of Jesus" but ignoring the ones who are closest to us, the ones who live around the place where we live. Mission has become something that we do somewhere else. The idea of following your passions and searching for Bog Turtles close to home as part of our mission often seems absurd.

Yet, it might be the most important part of our mission. When I first became a Pastor, one of the earliest pieces of advice I received (from a retired Pastor and Missionary) was that I would now dedicate my life to things I did not want to do. My days were now to be spent on things that I was not gifted for, rather than the things for which I possessed a talent. This removal from areas where I was gifted was the life of a Pastor. It was like he was saying that God had gifted me, he had given me a set of talents and passions and had helped me to develop them; all so that one day I could become a pastor and throw all of the gifts that he had given to me away. My gifts become just a part of God's disposable creation.

For me, this is the passion of this passage. God speaks to Ezekiel and says, I am not sending you to speak to a foreign people. I am not calling you to be a Jonah and travel to Nineveh to speak to the foreigners; I am sending you to your own people, those who speak the same language you do. And not only am I sending you to them, but I also know that you have a passion for them. I am the author of that passion, and now I need you to use your passion for them as you deliver the message I am giving you.

Ezekiel is a strange book filled with strange images. But part of that arises from Ezekiel's passions, passions that God was able to use because he was willing to submit them to God. We all have passions, but sometimes we refuse to see them as opportunities for mission. McLaren, as he searches for Bog Turtles in Maryland, is every bit as much of a missionary as someone who chases all over Africa in search of the heathen (maybe more, but I might be accused of pushing it). I am thankful for the passions God has given each of us. Passions for people and things, even a passion for this world that God created. Because I have a sneaking suspicion that the earth is part of our mission, and that when the end comes, the earth will be restored rather than destroyed. God's message to each of us is that when we are chasing our passions (even our passion for turtles), we are chasing after him. And that is precisely where we want to be.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 4

You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. – Ezekiel 2:7

Today's Scripture Reading (July 26, 2026): Ezekiel 2

Former astronaut Ed Lu, a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions and an extended stay on the International Space Station, argues that the risk of a collision between Earth and a city-destroying asteroid is much higher than previously thought. And part of the problem is the small size an asteroid would need to be to level a city. NASA currently monitors space for Earth-changing asteroids 0.65 miles (3,432 feet) in diameter or bigger, which could come into close contact with our planet. But it would only take an object with a diameter of 131 feet to level a city. The problem is that we have had no idea how to monitor space for such a small object, and space seems well populated with rocks of this size. Since we don't know how to find these objects, much less what to do with them when we do find them, why worry about them? Our attitude has been that we might as well ignore the possibility until we have found a solution to the problem.

Ed Lu is talking about these objects because he thinks he has a solution to the problem. However, now he needs public opinion to swing in his favor on detecting these smaller space rocks so he can finance his solution. Ed Lu's space rocks also reveal what seems to be a disturbing trend, at least to me, in the public statements we make. Politically, scientifically, and spiritually, there appears to be a trend to speak messages that are expedient rather than true. It seems that in all areas of life, we are ignoring the small rocks we don't know what to do with. In the area where I spend most of my time (the spiritual arena), it is revealed in a reluctance to talk about what is true because it is not the truth that the people around us really want to hear. We have become the Pied Pipers of our society, just telling people what we think they want to hear. After all, some wonder what we could do with the truth even if we did know it?

Yet, knowing the truth has consistently driven us toward imaginative solutions. Repeatedly throughout history, knowing the uncomfortable truth has forced us to move in the right direction. But if we don't know the truth, we can't develop the fix the problem requires.

God tells Ezekiel to give God's message to the people, even if they aren't listening. If the truth is hidden from the exiles, it won't be because they haven't been told; it will be because they were unwilling to listen. And we stand in a similar situation. The prophets of our society need to be willing to speak the uncomfortable truth, a truth that might surprise us from a God who loves us, all of us, dearly. But if we don't understand that, it must not be because we have never been told. It has to be because we were unwilling to listen.     

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 3

In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. - Ezekiel 1:1

Today's Scripture Reading (July 25, 2026): Ezekiel 1

In 525, a Christian monk named Dionysius Exiguus proposed dating events by referring to a common point in time. For Dionysius, because of his commitment to the Christian faith, that moment in time was the birth of Jesus Christ. Dionysius made a few mistakes in how he counted the five centuries that had passed between the birth of Jesus and his own life, and because of those mistakes, his dating is off by somewhere between four and seven years, yet the idea itself has stuck. Today we still date back to the same point in time. We call it the Common Era (or the Current Era or even the Christian Era), but it was originally called Anno Domini, or in the Year of our Lord, usually shortened to AD. The system allows us to date historical events so we can compare events across cultures, something that was once much more difficult. The last Western European nation to switch to the common calendar was Portugal, which made the change in 1422. 

The idea of dating events back to a common point is an old one. In ancient times, it was often dated to a significant event or death. The problem was that each culture chose different starting dates, and those dates changed with every generation. So, Ezekiel starts his account with a dating system, a common point in time that his readers would have understood. The NIV translates the dating very personally. Ezekiel dates his prophecy to "my thirtieth year," but it is unlikely that Ezekiel was counting the years of his own life.

For one thing, the idea of celebrating birthdays is more of a current practice. The dates of birth in ancient times were not celebrated. A better translation of the verse might be "in the thirtieth year," dating back to some common event. The problem is that while his first readers understood the connection to a common event, that event has been lost over time.

However, we can make some guesses. Ezekiel might have been dating back to the last year of Jubilee that had been celebrated in Judah. The problem with that idea is that the Jubilee celebrations in Israel were sporadic, if they were ever really celebrated at all.  Another possibility is that Ezekiel dates back to the discovery of the law during the days of Josiah. Dating the events of his life to the discovery of the law during the Temple renovations is the solution suggested by the Jewish Targum. Hilkiah found the book of the law in 621 BCE, which means that Ezekiel's vision dates to around 591 BCE, or five years before the fall of Jerusalem.

All of this indicates that Ezekiel was among those taken before the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE, and that it is in Babylon that his prophetic career begins. What is significant about this is that God finds Ezekiel far from home and the Temple dedicated to God by the Jews. Here, by a river in Babylon, Ezekiel hears the instructions of God and is compelled to follow them. The law found in the Temple thirty years earlier was still the instruction by which Ezekiel would structure his life, and the God who ruled in Jerusalem was still the God who ruled over Ezekiel and the exiles, even though they now found themselves living in a foreign land.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 2

Concerning the Ammonites: This is what the LORD says: "Has Israel no sons? Has Israel no heir? Why then has Molek taken possession of Gad? Why do his people live in its towns? – Jeremiah 49:1

Today's Scripture Reading (July 24, 2026): Jeremiah 49

Israel was always designed to operate as a theocracy, a nation where God was supposed to rule as the physical king. What we sometimes forget is that, while that is an unusual form of government, Israel would not have been the only theocracy in ancient times. Many nations were built on the idea of the "rule of the gods."  And another possible candidate for a theocracy is the Kingdom of Ammon and the Ammonites. In this case, the god in question would be Molech or Molek. But for the Ammonites, Molek was not just the name of their God; it was the name of their king. In fact, Molek seems to mean "the god who is king." Another interesting parallel between Ammon and Israel is that both nations were known as "The Children of." The people of Israel were known as "The Children of Israel," and the people of Ammon were known as "The Children of Ammon."

Gad was a Transjordanian tribe of Israel (a tribe that had settled, along with Manasseh and Reuben, on the east side of the Jordan River, while the rest of the tribes settled on the west side of the river). But the territory, which had been part of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, not Judah, was no longer a possession of the descendants of Jacob. By the time of Jeremiah, the Kingdom of Israel had long been defeated by the Assyrian Empire, and Israel had been carried into exile, now just a province of a foreign empire. Yet God still seemed to expect Judah, who represented the surviving children of Israel, to be in control of the cities of the Northern Kingdom, specifically the cities of Gad, which had long been lost to the Kingdom of Ammon. God's question is: why did Judah allow this situation to arise?

So, God's message to Judah asks the question, "Does Israel (or Jacob) have no sons? Because the cities that I gave to the children of Israel are now in the possession of the children of Molek" (either the god, the king, or both). This lack would form part of the charge against Judah; they had not had the faith to keep all that God had given to them.

It is a question that I admit that I wrestle with. Do I have the strength and the faith to keep what God has given to me? And I am not sure that I always know the answer. But I do believe that the church has become a safe church, not that it is a safe place to be, but rather, a safe place that is unwilling to risk for God. And because of that, we have lost the holy places and the people God intended for us to impact. And I wonder if at some point in the future, the question that Jeremiah asked of Judah will be asked of us. Why have you lost the ones whom I entrusted to your care?

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 1

Every head is shaved and every beard cut off; every hand is slashed and every waist is covered with sackcloth. – Jeremiah 48:37

Today's Scripture Reading (July 23, 2026): Jeremiah 48

In March 1861, Queen Victoria's mother died. Even though her relationship with her mother had been rocky, Victoria was deeply moved by the event. Victoria was at her mother's bedside when her mother died, and her feeling of loss was only intensified when she went through her mother's papers and discovered that her mother had loved her deeply. Victoria's grief was so intense that she began to disengage from even her own duties. In the months that followed in 1861, it was her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who took over her duties, despite being ill with a chronic stomach condition. And then the unthinkable happened. At the beginning of December 1861, Prince Albert was diagnosed with typhoid fever. Prince Albert died on December 14, 1861.

With the death of Albert so soon after her mother's demise, Victoria went into a permanent state of mourning. The Queen wore black for the rest of her life. The color indicated the darkness that had invaded her soul. Victoria would reign for another 40 years, but during that time, she would rarely appear in public. She rarely stepped foot in London. She shied away from all public appearances, to the point that her reputation and the Monarchy's public image began to decline. Her advisors begged her to make public appearances to remind the people that she was still the Queen of the United Kingdom, but she only agreed reluctantly. The defining feature of her life was no longer her status as the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Empress of India. Her grief now defined her life. All of this earned Victoria the nickname of "The Widow of Windsor."

Jeremiah speaks in this passage, not of humiliation as some might think, but rather of grief. In the pagan cultures surrounding Israel, each of these behaviors is associated with grief. In ancient times, in deep grief, men would pluck out their hair until they were literally bald; they would shave their beards, which were considered the "glory of their faces." They would cut themselves, especially their arms and hands, either with their fingernails or with a knife, in an attempt to relieve the pain of their souls. And they would cover themselves with sackcloth, a rough, uncomfortable fabric, to indicate to the world that they were in mourning. All of this was an outside view of an inner pain. And all of this is Jeremiah's message. Moab's pain will not just be physical; it will be emotional, and it might be that the emotional pain is more debilitating than the physical.

Sometimes we seem to be tempted to downplay our emotional pain as if it were not real. But that pain is real, and it needs to be dealt with. The truth is that our emotional pain changes more than just the way we dress; it changes the way that we react to the world. Left unacknowledged, it can remove us from life and stop us from making the difference in this world that we are intended to make. And that is simply too high a price to pay for our unaddressed pain.       

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 49

During Jehoiakim's reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. But then he turned against Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled. – 2 Kings 24:1

Today's Scripture Reading (July 22, 2026): 2 Kings 24

Necho II reigned in Egypt during a particularly tumultuous time. The Babylonian Empire began its rise to prominence, and with the help of the Cimmerians, Scythians, and the Kingdom of Judah, it shattered the Assyrians' previous hold on the region. Necho wanted to maintain the status quo and avoid the chaos of an Empire-wide military struggle in the area, so he sent part of his army to help the Assyrians. Unfortunately, the army he had sent proved to be too small, but he learned his lesson quickly and attacked one more time, and this time he succeeded. It was this battle that would claim the life of Josiah, King of Judah.

Leaving a sizable army in the field to protect his assets, Necho returned home, and while passing through Judah, he noticed that the people had placed Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, on the throne of Judah. But Necho wanted someone more amenable to Egypt's interests in the area. So he removed Jehoahaz from the throne and took him captive to Egypt. Jehoahaz would live out the rest of his days as a guest of Necho in Egypt. In his place, Necho placed Jehoahaz's brother Jehoiakim on the throne in Judah. Jehoiakim paid Egypt an annual tribute as the price of Judah's freedom, but, in effect, the nation paid for its alliance with Babylon by becoming a vassal state of Egypt.

But in 605 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar succeeded his ailing father as king of Babylon. And one of his first acts was to invade Judah, the vassal state of Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar defeated Judah and carried off the first installment of captives to Babylon, an exile which likely included Ezekiel, Daniel, and Daniel's friends: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. For the next three years, Judah would be a vassal state under Babylonian rule.

But in 601 BCE, two significant things happened. The first was that Nebuchadnezzar returned home, leaving a sizable army in Judah, but not his personal presence. The second event was Necho II of Egypt's final attempt at world conquest, beginning with Judah. Whether Jehoiakim recognized Necho's return as an opportunity to shake off the bonds of Babylon, or whether he was moved because his brother Jehoahaz was still a captive of Necho in Egypt, Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylon. But what Judah did not recognize was that Nebuchadnezzar's rise at this time in history was an act of God to get the people's attention. It was not really Nebuchadnezzar that Necho and Jehoiakim were struggling against; it was God. Judah's continued rebellion would only solidify Nebuchadnezzar's hold over the nation.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 48

But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me. – Daniel 2:6

Today's Scripture Reading (July 21, 2026): Daniel 2

Nostradamus was born in December 1503 in France. He is probably the best-known of the secular prophets. His prophecies, broken down into a series of quatrains, were published in three installments between 1555 and 1558. As was common for the day, no two editions of the prophecies were identical. Some have tried to describe the differences as a prophetic emphasis, but there is no indication that this is true. Nostradamus is thought by believers to have accurately predicted many of the events that have happened since the time of the writing of the prophecies until the present day. Supporters maintain that Nostradamus correctly predicted the Great Fire of London, the rise of Adolph Hitler, and the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center.   

But the thing about any prophecy is that the prophecies always make more sense in reverse. After the events have already happened, we can recognize patterns in the unexpected waves of time. But this is not really what readers of prophecies want. What the reader of the prophecy desires is to predict the future, but even biblical prophecies seldom do that. A case in point would be the birth, life, and death of Jesus. While Jesus, the Messiah or Christ, is predicted throughout the Old Testament, the fulfillment of those prophecies was not well understood, and no one really believed that the prophecies about the Christ would turn out as they did. We see the Messianic prophecies much more clearly in retrospect than the people would have before the events happened. And sometimes, while a prediction may seem to be accurate, critics will always question whether or not the correct prediction is any more than mere coincidence.

It would seem that Nebuchadnezzar was a critic when it came to the subject of prophecy. As a result, when Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that he needs interpreted, he fears that once his wise men learn the dream, they will just make up an interpretation of the prophecy. He actively questions how he could trust a prophecy given in that manner. And so, he comes up with a plan. If the wise men could tell him the dream, as well as tell him what the dream meant, maybe then he could trust the prophecy.

This requirement that the prophet reveal the dream and its interpretation was a new idea. It would seem that this was not the usual request of a king concerning the interpretations of their dream. But the reality was that the request was impossible, something Nebuchadnezzar's wise men understood. But the presentation of an impossible situation left an opening for God. And God was ready to move through that opening.

God still moves in the impossible if we will trust him and give him that chance to move.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 24

Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. – Daniel 1:12

Today's Scripture Reading (July 20, 2026): Daniel 1

Many well-known Christians, including Pastor Rick Warren, have advocated the health benefits of a vegetarian-style diet, citing the Book of Daniel as the model for the nutrition plan. These plans usually use Daniel's name in their branding and often promote Daniel's Diet as a biblically based diet guaranteed to promote health and weight loss. And there is no doubt that these plans do both of those things, but what isn't so clear is that the diet plans are biblically based.

The concept that these diets are biblical plans stems from this passage. The problem with saying that this vegetarian diet is biblically based is that we would have to take the passage out of context to make the argument. There is no place in this passage where Daniel announces that the vegetarian lifestyle (or even that a vegetarian purge or detox) is part of God's plan. The problem Daniel faced was that no suitable kosher meat was available. Most of the meat that would have come to the king's table would have been offered as a sacrifice to the gods of Babylon. That reason alone made the meat unsuitable for consumption by a good follower of Israel's God. Besides being sacrificed to the gods, it also would not have been prepared in a way that would remove all the meat's blood, a process that usually involved salting the meat to draw out moisture. This process is what makes the meat kosher. It was this lack of suitable meat that led Daniel to adopt a vegetarian diet; however, it was not because he believed in the health benefits of vegetarianism.

In fact, Daniel's story promotes an opposite lifestyle. The story holds that a meat diet was required for health, something that we now know is not true. This belief in the power of meat is the basis for the reaction of the handler of the Hebrew men. He was responsible for their health, and, as was understood at the time, that health demanded a high-meat diet.

The miracle of the story is that not only did the vegetarian diet work, but it also worked in a relatively short period of time. But the moral of the story is not about diet; it is about the four men's willingness to place their trust in God and do the unusual. The men's health was never attributed to the diet, but rather to the God they had served. Because Daniel and his friends trusted in God and kept God's laws, they passed the test. A strong belief in the God of Israel was the only reason that Daniel and his friends passed the test.

Trust in God is one of the major themes of Daniel. If we are willing to trust, then good things will happen. Life has never been about the physical realities that surround us. Life is about trusting in the God who created our physical realities. And no one else will do.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Daniel 2

 

… at the sound of the hooves of galloping steeds, at the noise of enemy chariots and the rumble of their wheels. Parents will not turn to help their children; their hands will hang limp. – Jeremiah 47:3

Today's Scripture Reading (July 19, 2026): Jeremiah 47

Rapid Dominance (also known as Shock and Awe) is a military doctrine developed by Harlan Ullman and James Wade in 1996. The doctrine advocates spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy and destroy their will to fight. Rapid Dominance was the military strategy used by the United States during the Iraq War, which might be appropriate because, although the doctrine was written in 1996, the Americans were not the first to use it in Iraq.

Long before the doctrine had a name, the same strategy was used in Iraq. When it was first used, Iraq was called Babylon, and instead of being used against them, the strategy of “Rapid Dominance” was used by them. It was used in the last years of the 7th century BCE, an era that Jeremiah knew very well. Jeremiah's warning is directed at the Philistine cities and concerns the “Shock and Awe” of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian war machine. Jeremiah says that the Philistines will not actually need to see the Babylonian army coming. All that will be needed to strike fear into the hearts of the Philistine people is the sound of the beat of the horses' hooves and the rattle of the wheels of the chariots that are carrying the military officers.

On that day, the fear would be debilitating. In fact, it would be so bad that people's natural behaviors would be disrupted. Rabbinical writings on this passage stress that the passage indicates that "the fathers shall not look back to have mercy on their children." In their fright, they will forget what is natural, and their fear will be so great that they will not be able to have pity and compassion on them. The only thing that will matter is their own safety and deliverance.

The Babylonian Empire did not last very long, but at its height, it struck fear into the known world. And the sound of their war machine was all it took to paralyze the ones that they rode against.   

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Daniel 1

 

 

The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "I am about to bring punishment on Amon god of Thebes, on Pharaoh, on Egypt and her gods and her kings, and on those who rely on Pharaoh. – Jeremiah 46:25

Today's Scripture Reading (July 18, 2026): Jeremiah 46

Amun-Re was the chief god of the Egyptian pantheon. In fact, Amun became so all-encompassing in the Egyptian pantheon that he threatened to reduce their worship to a monotheistic faith. As time passed, Amun-Re was not only the king of the gods but was effectively becoming the only god of Egypt. In the Leiden hymns, a collection of Egyptian poetry written in the latter part of the 13^th Century B.C.E., Amun-Re is hailed as the unity of all gods. He is the one god. He is the uncreated one, the one who existed before time began and will exist long after time has stopped. And if this is beginning to sound a little like the Christian God, the similarities continue. In Chapter 300, the poetry explicitly identifies Amun (the same as Amon in Jeremiah) as the primary god of the Egyptian Trinity. The god of unity, but embodying the powers of all three of Egypt's central gods. He is one – yet three. Specifically, the hymn reads –

            All the gods are three:
            Amun, Re and Ptah, without their seconds.
            His identity is hidden as Amun,
            He is Re as face, His body is Ptah.

            Everything that comes from His mouth,
            the gods are bound by it, according to what has been decreed.
            When a message is sent, it is for killing or for giving life.
            Life and death depend on Him for everyone,
            except for Him, Amun, together with Re, [and Ptah]: total, 3.

When we consider that Amun is the unseen God and is associated with the wind, the Leiden Hymns almost begin to read like the Gospel of John: " The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

But Jeremiah makes it clear that Amun-Re, the uncreated one of Egypt, is not the uncreated one of Israel. Amon of Thebes, the king of the gods of Egypt, the prime deity of the Egyptian Trinity, the creator of everything, is nothing more than a pretender. And the God of Israel will never bow to a pretender.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 47

You deceived me, LORD, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. – Jeremiah 20:7

Today's Scripture Reading (July 17, 2026): Jeremiah 20

In the late 1960's, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice penned their conception of the last week of the life of Jesus Christ. "Jesus Christ, Superstar" has proven to be an enduring image, and the songs of the Rock Opera have carried the cries of the human side of Jesus to every generation since the opera was first written and performed. For me, one of the most moving scenes in the Webber-Rice tale takes place in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is there that Jesus is confronted with the cross on which he will die, there that Jesus strains against the will of God, wondering if all of this is worth it, and there that he wonders about the goal that they are trying to reach. It is in Gethsemane that Jesus wrestles with everything that is about to happen. Near the end of the prayer, Jesus finally gives in to his Father's plan. The words that Rice places in the mouth of Jesus at this moment are –

God, thy will is hard, but you hold every card.
I will drink your cup of poison.
Nail me to your cross and break me.
Bleed me, beat me, kill me, take me now.
Before I change my mind.

The sentiments of the words are only partially the product of Rice's imagination. The Gospel record does record that Jesus struggled with the path he was to take. But the reality is that, as much as some portions of the Christian Church seem to want us to believe otherwise, sometimes God's will is difficult. John the Baptist seemed to struggle at the end of his life, wondering if Jesus was really the one who was to come or whether they were waiting for someone else. And in this passage, it is Jeremiah who is questioning the will of God.

Specifically, Jeremiah's complaint goes back to the beginning of Jeremiah's prophetic writings. At the moment when Jeremiah was called, he had excused himself. He was too young, and he did not have the words that were needed for such a task. But in that moment God's reply to Jeremiah was "Do not say, 'I am too young.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you" (Jeremiah 1:7-8). But in this moment, years into the God mission he had accepted, Jeremiah is not sure that God is true to his word. He spoke the words that God had placed in his heart, yet it did not seem that God was with him or that God had been ready to rescue him.

But the story was not over, not yet. God still had further places to carry Jeremiah. But sometimes it is in the midst of the story that we stop feeling him. And that is why faith is so important for all of us, because with the eyes of faith, we know that God is with us. He is with us even in the moments when we question him the most.     

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 46

Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching, and say to them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter's jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. – Jeremiah 19:10-11

Today's Scripture Reading (July 16, 2026): Jeremiah 19

One of our most-loved Nursery Rhymes was penned in the late 18^th century. The rhyme in question is "Humpty, Dumpty," the famous egg who sat on the wall. One problem with our understanding of Humpty Dumpty is that the poem nowhere suggests that Humpty Dumpty was an egg. It is thought that the original intention of the rhyme was that it was supposed to be a riddle, a statement in which people would be invited to guess the identity of Humpty Dumpty. But the riddle long ago turned into a children's rhyme, and the mystery found at the core of the rhyme has long since been forgotten.

But that has not stopped some from trying to guess the riddle's answer. Suggested answers include King Richard III, the last king of the House of York, whom the upstart House of Tudor toppled. Two other possible answers to the riddle emerge from the Siege of Colchester in 1648, a battle from the middle of the English Civil War. During the war, the Royalist army found itself hemmed in at the walled city of Colchester.  Outside the walls were the Parliamentarians. The rhyme, some assert, is about either a sniper, a man known as One-Eyed Thompson, or a cannon, appropriately known as Humpty Dumpty, that sat on the walls of a church called Mary-at-the-Walls. The story tells of the Parliamentarians outside the city who weakened the wall beneath either the sniper or the cannon, causing the fall of "Humpty Dumpty." As a result of this fall, the city of Colchester was lost, and all the king's horses and all the king's men, referring of course to the Royalist Army trapped inside the city, couldn't save either the town or Humpty Dumpty.

God seems to have a similar illustration and story for Jeremiah to tell. Again, the weeping prophet is given an illustration of what is about to happen in Jerusalem. He is to go and take a jar and break it. The imagery here is not that Jeremiah would gently break the jar, leaving large pieces that might be put back together. The imagery is of a smashed jar that has been broken into so many pieces that it is impossible to reassemble, even with all of the king's horses and all the king's men at the ready to do the task.

But maybe the one thing we miss when we read this prophecy is that, while in the short term the prophecy was fulfilled and Jerusalem was left in ruins, God is still the God of the impossible, and in the long term it seems that God himself would put the city back together again. Jerusalem still stands today, although, admittedly, once again, it would seem that the Holy City is broken, divided among the People of Israel, the Followers of Jesus Christ, and the Followers of Islam. But no matter how broken the city might seem, God remains the God who can still put the pieces back together.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 20

They said, "Come, let's make plans against Jeremiah; for the teaching of the law by the priest will not cease, nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. So come, let's attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he says." – Jeremiah 18:18

Today's Scripture Reading (July 15, 2026): Jeremiah 18

For generations, historians have fought over the character of Richard III of England. For some, Richard III is accurately summed up by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare described Richard III as an ambitious man who was jealous of his older brother, King Edward IV, and his success. Historians have accused Richard of being guilty of fratricide, blaming him for the death of his brother and his nephews Edward V, who was around 13 years of age when he disappeared, as well as the disappearance and supposed murder of Edward V's younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. The young boys have been dubbed the "Princes of the Tower" by historians because the Tower of London was the last place where we know they were housed. No one really knows what happened to the young princes after their admission to the Tower following the death of their Father.

But that is not the only picture that we have of Richard III. Other historians have seen the third King Richard as a fiercely loyal man who would never consider killing his older brother, of whom he was deeply proud, let alone the murder of his young nephews. According to this group of historians, Richard was the victim of a propaganda campaign carried out by the House of Tudor, which sought to end the reign of the House of York, of which Edward and Richard were members. These historians remind us that the victors often write history; in this case, the House of Tudor won the fight, and as a result, the reign of the House of York was not only ended but also tarnished.

We may never know the truth about King Richard III, which might be proof of the effectiveness of the lies that our enemies can tell about us. It was a truth that Jeremiah knew firsthand. Jeremiah carried an unfortunate message, one the nation didn't want to hear. Jeremiah's critics hoped the prophet was wrong. Early in Jeremiah's career, his opponents had already chosen their offensive response. They were going to speak lies about Jeremiah and discredit him. The hope was that if lies took hold, his words would lose their strength, and the people would no longer listen to him. And maybe, their lies would also change the bleak future that Jeremiah was predicting. Basically, his opponents planned to accuse Jeremiah of being a false prophet, hoping that this accusation, which the religious officials of Jerusalem had thought up, would end up being true.

Jeremiah knew of their plot and had decided that the problem was not his; it was the problem of the one who had given him his vision of the future. Jeremiah was confident in his God. If he were a false prophet, it would not be because the officials of Jerusalem had labeled him as one, but because he had misread the movement of his God. But, once again, history is written by the victors, and in this case, the victor was Jeremiah. His prediction proved true, and history has remembered his opponents as the liars.  

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 19