July 29
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Lamentations 2

Chapter 2

2:1Alef
How the Lord has overshadowed
Daughter Zion with His anger!
He has thrown down Israel's glory
from heaven to earth.
He has abandoned His footstool
in the day of His anger.
2Bet
Without compassion the Lord has swallowed up
all the dwellings of Jacob.
In His wrath He has demolished
the fortified cities of Daughter Judah.
He brought them to the ground
and defiled the kingdom and its leaders.
3Gimel
He has cut off every horn of Israel
in His burning anger
and withdrawn His right hand
in the presence of the enemy.
He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
that consumes everything.
4Dalet
He has bent His bow like an enemy;
His right hand is positioned like an adversary.
He has killed everyone who was loved,
pouring out His wrath like fire
on the tent of Daughter Zion.
5He
The Lord is like an enemy;
He has swallowed up Israel.
He swallowed up all its palaces
and destroyed its fortified cities.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
within Daughter Judah.
6Vav
He has done violence to His temple
as if it were a garden booth,
destroying His place of meeting.
The Lord has abolished
appointed festivals and Sabbaths in Zion.
He has despised king and priest
in His fierce anger.
7Zayin
The Lord has rejected His altar,
repudiated His sanctuary;
He has handed the walls of her palaces
over to the enemy.
They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord
as on the day of an appointed festival.
8Khet
The Lord determined to destroy
the wall of Daughter Zion.
He stretched out a measuring line
and did not restrain Himself from destroying.
He made the ramparts and walls grieve;
together they waste away.
9Tet
Zion's gates have fallen to the ground;
He has destroyed and shattered the bars on her gates.
Her king and her leaders live among the nations,
instruction is no more,
and even her prophets receive
no vision from the Lord.
10Yod
The elders of Daughter Zion
sit on the ground in silence.
They have thrown dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth.
The young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.
11Kaf
My eyes are worn out from weeping;
I am churning within.
My heart is poured out in grief
because of the destruction of my dear people,
because children and infants faint
in the streets of the city.
12Lamed
They cry out to their mothers:
Where is the grain and wine?
as they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
as their lives fade away
in the arms of their mothers.
13Mem
What can I say on your behalf?
What can I compare you to, Daughter Jerusalem?
What can I liken you to,
so that I may console you, Virgin Daughter Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea.
Who can heal you?
14Nun
Your prophets saw visions for you
that were empty and deceptive;
they did not reveal your guilt
and so restore your fortunes.
They saw oracles for you
that were empty and misleading.
15Samek
All who pass by
scornfully clap their hands at you.
They mock and shake their heads
at Daughter Jerusalem:
Is this the city that was called
the perfection of beauty,
the joy of the whole earth?
16Pe
All your enemies
open their mouths against you.
They hiss and gnash their teeth,
saying, "We have swallowed her up.
This is the day we have waited for!
We have lived to see it."
17Ayin
The Lord has done what He planned;
He has accomplished His decree,
which He ordained in days of old.
He has demolished without compassion,
letting the enemy gloat over you
and exalting the horn of your adversaries.
18Tsade
The hearts of the people cry out to the Lord.
Wall of Daughter Zion,
let your tears run down like a river
day and night.
Give yourself no relief
and your eyes no rest.
19Qof
Arise, cry out in the night
from the first watch of the night.
Pour out your heart like water
before the Lord's presence.
Lift up your hands to Him
for the lives of your children
who are fainting from hunger
on the corner of every street.
20Resh
Lord, look and consider
who You have done this to.
Should women eat their own children,
the infants they have nurtured?
Should priests and prophets
be killed in the Lord's sanctuary?
21Shin
Both young and old
are lying on the ground in the streets.
My young men and women
have fallen by the sword.
You have killed them in the day of Your anger,
slaughtering without compassion.
22Tav
You summoned my attackers on every side,
as if for an appointed festival day;
on the day of the Lord's anger
no one escaped or survived.
My enemy has destroyed
those I nurtured and reared.

John 9

Chapter 9

9:1As He was passing by, He saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples questioned Him: "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," Jesus answered. "This came about so that God's works might be displayed in him. 4We must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
6After He said these things He spit on the ground, made some mud from the saliva, and spread the mud on his eyes. 7"Go," He told him, "wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means "Sent"). So he left, washed, and came back seeing.
8His neighbors and those who formerly had seen him as a beggar said, "Isn't this the man who sat begging?" 9Some said, "He's the one." "No," others were saying, "but he looks like him."
He kept saying, "I'm the one!"
10Therefore they asked him, "Then how were your eyes opened?"
11He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' So when I went and washed I received my sight."
12"Where is He?" they asked.
"I don't know," he said.
13They brought the man who used to be blind to the Pharisees. 14The day that Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes was a Sabbath. 15So again the Pharisees asked him how he received his sight.
"He put mud on my eyes," he told them. "I washed and I can see."
16Therefore some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for He doesn't keep the Sabbath!" But others were saying, "How can a sinful man perform such signs?" And there was a division among them.
17Again they asked the blind man, "What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?"
"He's a prophet," he said.
18The Jews did not believe this about him-that he was blind and received sight-until they summoned the parents of the one who had received his sight.
19They asked them, "Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? How then does he now see?"
20"We know this is our son and that he was born blind," his parents answered. 21"But we don't know how he now sees, and we don't know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he's of age. He will speak for himself." 22His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Jews, since the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him as Messiah, he would be banned from the synagogue. 23This is why his parents said, "He's of age; ask him."
24So a second time they summoned the man who had been blind and told him, "Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner!"
25He answered, "Whether or not He's a sinner, I don't know. One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I can see!"
26Then they asked him, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?"
27"I already told you," he said, "and you didn't listen. Why do you want to hear it again? You don't want to become His disciples too, do you?"
28They ridiculed him: "You're that man's disciple, but we're Moses' disciples. 29We know that God has spoken to Moses. But this man-we don't know where He's from!"
30"This is an amazing thing," the man told them. "You don't know where He is from, yet He opened my eyes! 31We know that God doesn't listen to sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He listens to him. 32Throughout history no one has ever heard of someone opening the eyes of a person born blind. 33If this man were not from God, He wouldn't be able to do anything."
34"You were born entirely in sin," they replied, "and are you trying to teach us?" Then they threw him out.
35When Jesus heard that they had thrown the man out, He found him and asked, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
36"Who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him?" he asked.
37Jesus answered, "You have seen Him; in fact, He is the One speaking with you."
38"I believe, Lord!" he said, and he worshiped Him.
39Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment, in order that those who do not see will see and those who do see will become blind."
40Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and asked Him, "We aren't blind too, are we?"
41"If you were blind," Jesus told them, "you wouldn't have sin. But now that you say, 'We see'-your sin remains.

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