Day 371 of 939
2SA 14:1-16
2SA 14:1-16 · ACT 10:1-12
Not written yet
The reading for this day is below. The commentary has not been written and reviewed yet — it is added a book at a time, and every day is read by a person before it appears here.
2SA 14:1-16
1Now Joab son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s heart longed for Absalom. 2So Joab sent to Tekoa to bring a wise woman from there. He told her, “Please pretend to be a mourner; put on clothes for mourning and do not anoint yourself with oil. Act like a woman who has mourned for the dead a long time. 3Then go to the king and speak these words to him.” And Joab put the words in her mouth. 4When the woman from Tekoa went to the king, she fell facedown in homage and said, “Help me, O king!” 5“What troubles you?” the king asked her. “Indeed,” she said, “I am a widow, for my husband is dead. 6And your maidservant had two sons who were fighting in the field with no one to separate them, and one struck the other and killed him. 7Now the whole clan has risen up against your maidservant and said, ‘Hand over the one who struck down his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of the brother whom he killed. Then we will cut off the heir as well!’ So they would extinguish my one remaining ember by not preserving my husband’s name or posterity on the earth.” 8“Go home,” the king said to the woman, “and I will give orders on your behalf.” 9But the woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord the king, may any blame be on me and on my father’s house, and may the king and his throne be guiltless.” 10“If anyone speaks to you,” said the king, “bring him to me, and he will not trouble you again!” 11“Please,” she replied, “may the king invoke the LORD your God to prevent the avenger of blood from increasing the devastation, so that my son may not be destroyed!” “As surely as the LORD lives,” he vowed, “not a hair of your son’s head will fall to the ground.” 12Then the woman said, “Please, may your servant speak a word to my lord the king?” “Speak,” he replied. 13The woman asked, “Why have you devised a thing like this against the people of God? When the king says this, does he not convict himself, since he has not brought back his own banished son? 14For we will surely die and be like water poured out on the ground, which cannot be recovered. Yet God does not take away a life, but He devises ways that the banished one may not be cast out from Him. 15Now therefore, I have come to present this matter to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid. Your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king. Perhaps he will grant the request of his maidservant. 16For the king will hear and deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who would cut off both me and my son from God’s inheritance.’
Secondary reading — ACT 10:1-12
1At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was called the Italian Regiment. 2He and all his household were devout and God-fearing. He gave generously to the people and prayed to God regularly. 3One day at about the ninth hour, he had a clear vision of an angel of God who came to him and said, “Cornelius!” 4Cornelius stared at him in fear and asked, “What is it, Lord?” The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have ascended as a memorial offering before God. 5Now send men to Joppa to call for a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea. ” 7When the angel who spoke to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among his attendants. 8He explained what had happened and sent them to Joppa. 9The next day at about the sixth hour, as the men were approaching the city on their journey, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10He became hungry and wanted something to eat, but while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11He saw heaven open and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12It contained all kinds of four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth, as well as birds of the air.