1 Chronicles 19; 1 Chronicles 20; 1 Chronicles 21; John 8:1-27

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1 Chronicles 19

1 Some time later King Nahash of Ammon died, and his son Hanun became king.
2 King David said, "I must show loyal friendship to Hanun, as his father Nahash did to me." So David sent messengers to express his sympathy. When they arrived in Ammon and called on King Hanun,
3 the Ammonite leaders said to the king, "Do you think that it is in your father's honor that David has sent these men to express sympathy to you? Of course not! He has sent them here as spies to explore the land, so that he can conquer it!"
4 Hanun seized David's messengers, shaved off their beards, cut off their clothes at the hips, and sent them away.
5 They were too ashamed to return home. When David heard what had happened, he sent word for them to stay in Jericho and not return until their beards had grown again.
6 King Hanun and the Ammonites realized that they had made David their enemy, so they paid nearly forty tons of silver to hire chariots and charioteers from Upper Mesopotamia and from the Syrian states of Maacah and Zobah.
7 The thirty-two thousand chariots they hired and the army of the king of Maacah came and camped near Medeba. The Ammonites too came out from all their cities and got ready to fight.
8 When David heard what was happening, he sent out Joab and the whole army.
9 The Ammonites marched out and took up their position at the entrance to Rabbah, their capital city, and the kings who had come to help took up their position in the open countryside.
10 Joab saw that the enemy troops would attack him in front and from the rear, so he chose the best of Israel's soldiers and put them in position facing the Syrians.
11 He placed the rest of his troops under the command of his brother Abishai, who put them in position facing the Ammonites.
12 Joab said to him, "If you see that the Syrians are defeating me, come and help me, and if the Ammonites are defeating you, I will go and help you.
13 Be strong and courageous! Let's fight hard for our people and for the cities of our God. And may the Lord's will be done."
14 Joab and his men advanced to attack, and the Syrians fled.
15 When the Ammonites saw the Syrians running away, they fled from Abishai and retreated into the city. Then Joab went back to Jerusalem.
16 The Syrians realized that they had been defeated by the Israelites, so they brought troops from the Syrian states on the east side of the Euphrates River and placed them under the command of Shobach, commander of the army of King Hadadezer of Zobah.
17 When David heard of it, he gathered the Israelite troops, crossed the Jordan River, and put them in position facing the Syrians. The fighting began,
18 and the Israelites drove the Syrian army back. David and his men killed seven thousand Syrian chariot drivers and forty thousand foot soldiers. They also killed the Syrian commander, Shobach.
19 When the kings who were subject to Hadadezer realized that they had been defeated by Israel, they made peace with David and became his subjects.
20 The Syrians were never again willing to help the Ammonites.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

1 Chronicles 20

1 The following spring, at the time of the year when kings usually go to war, Joab led out the army and invaded the land of Ammon; King David, however, stayed in Jerusalem. They besieged the city of Rabbah, attacked it, and destroyed it.
2 The Ammonite idol Molech had a gold crown which weighed about seventy-five pounds. In it there was a jewel, which David took and put in his own crown. He also took a large amount of loot from the city.
3 He took the people of the city and put them to work with saws, iron hoes, and axes. He did the same to the people of all the other towns of Ammon. Then he and his men returned to Jerusalem.
4 Later on, war broke out again with the Philistines at Gezer. This was when Sibbecai from Hushah killed a giant named Sippai, and the Philistines were defeated.
5 There was another battle with the Philistines, and Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath from Gath, whose spear had a shaft as thick as the bar on a weaver's loom.
6 Another battle took place at Gath, where there was a giant with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. He was a descendant of the ancient giants.
7 He defied the Israelites, and Jonathan, the son of David's brother Shammah, killed him.
8 These three, who were killed by David and his men, were descendants of the giants at Gath.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

1 Chronicles 21

1 Satan wanted to bring trouble on the people of Israel, so he made David decide to take a census.
2 David gave orders to Joab and the other officers, "Go through Israel, from one end of the country to the other, and count the people. I want to know how many there are."
3 Joab answered, "May the Lord make the people of Israel a hundred times more numerous than they are now! Your Majesty, they are all your servants. Why do you want to do this and make the whole nation guilty?"
4 But the king made Joab obey the order. Joab went out, traveled through the whole country of Israel, and then returned to Jerusalem.
5 He reported to King David the total number of men capable of military service: 1,100,000 in Israel and 470,000 in Judah.
6 Because Joab disapproved of the king's command, he did not take any census of the tribes of Levi and Benjamin.
7 God was displeased with what had been done, so he punished Israel.
8 David said to God, "I have committed a terrible sin in doing this! Please forgive me. I have acted foolishly."
9 Then the Lord said to Gad, David's prophet,
10 "Go and tell David that I am giving him three choices. I will do whichever he chooses."
11 Gad went to David, told him what the Lord had said, and asked, "Which is it to be?
12 Three years of famine? Or three months of running away from the armies of your enemies? Or three days during which the Lord attacks you with his sword and sends an epidemic on your land, using his angel to bring death throughout Israel? What answer shall I give the Lord?"
13 David replied to Gad, "I am in a desperate situation! But I don't want to be punished by people. Let the Lord himself be the one to punish me, because he is merciful."
14 So the Lord sent an epidemic on the people of Israel, and seventy thousand of them died.
15 Then he sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but he changed his mind and said to the angel, "Stop! That's enough!" The angel was standing by the threshing place of Araunah, a Jebusite.
16 David saw the angel standing in midair, holding his sword in his hand, ready to destroy Jerusalem. Then David and the leaders of the people - all of whom were wearing sackcloth - bowed low, with their faces touching the ground.
17 David prayed, "O God, I am the one who did wrong. I am the one who ordered the census. What have these poor people done? Lord, my God, punish me and my family, and spare your people."
18 The angel of the Lord told Gad to command David to go and build an altar to the Lord at Araunah's threshing place.
19 David obeyed the Lord's command and went, as Gad had told him to.
20 There at the threshing place Araunah and his four sons were threshing wheat, and when they saw the angel, the sons ran and hid.
21 As soon as Araunah saw King David approaching, he left the threshing place and bowed low, with his face touching the ground.
22 David said to him, "Sell me your threshing place, so that I can build an altar to the Lord, to stop the epidemic. I'll give you the full price."
23 "Take it, Your Majesty," Araunah said, "and do whatever you wish. Here are these oxen to burn as an offering on the altar, and here are the threshing boards to use as fuel, and wheat to give as an offering. I give it all to you."
24 But the king answered, "No, I will pay you the full price. I will not give as an offering to the Lord something that belongs to you, something that costs me nothing."
25 And he paid Araunah six hundred gold coins for the threshing place.
26 He built an altar to the Lord there and offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He prayed, and the Lord answered him by sending fire from heaven to burn the sacrifices on the altar.
27 The Lord told the angel to put his sword away, and the angel obeyed.
28 David saw by this that the Lord had answered his prayer, so he offered sacrifices on the altar at Araunah's threshing place.
29 The Tent of the Lord's presence which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar on which sacrifices were burned were still at the place of worship at Gibeon at this time;
30 but David was not able to go there to worship God, because he was afraid of the sword of the Lord's angel.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

John 8:1-27

1 [Then everyone went home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
2 Early the next morning he went back to the Temple. All the people gathered around him, and he sat down and began to teach them.
3 The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees brought in a woman who had been caught committing adultery, and they made her stand before them all.
4 "Teacher," they said to Jesus, "this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.
5 In our Law Moses commanded that such a woman must be stoned to death. Now, what do you say?"
6 They said this to trap Jesus, so that they could accuse him. But he bent over and wrote on the ground with his finger.
7 As they stood there asking him questions, he straightened up and said to them, "Whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw the first stone at her."
8 Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground.
9 When they heard this, they all left, one by one, the older ones first. Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there.
10 He straightened up and said to her, "Where are they? Is there no one left to condemn you?"
11 "No one, sir," she answered. "Well, then," Jesus said, "I do not condemn you either. Go, but do not sin again."]
12 Jesus spoke to the Pharisees again. "I am the light of the world," he said. "Whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness."
13 The Pharisees said to him, "Now you are testifying on your own behalf; what you say proves nothing."
14 "No," Jesus answered, "even though I do testify on my own behalf, what I say is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going. You do not know where I came from or where I am going.
15 You make judgments in a purely human way; I pass judgment on no one.
16 But if I were to do so, my judgment would be true, because I am not alone in this; the Father who sent me is with me.
17 It is written in your Law that when two witnesses agree, what they say is true.
18 I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me also testifies on my behalf."
19 "Where is your father?" they asked him. "You know neither me nor my Father," Jesus answered. "If you knew me, you would know my Father also."
20 Jesus said all this as he taught in the Temple, in the room where the offering boxes were placed. And no one arrested him, because his hour had not come.
21 Again Jesus said to them, "I will go away; you will look for me, but you will die in your sins. You cannot go where I am going."
22 So the Jewish authorities said, "He says that we cannot go where he is going. Does this mean that he will kill himself?"
23 Jesus answered, "You belong to this world here below, but I come from above. You are from this world, but I am not from this world.
24 That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. And you will die in your sins if you do not believe that "I Am Who I Am'."
25 "Who are you?" they asked him. Jesus answered, "What I have told you from the very beginning.
26 I have much to say about you, much to condemn you for. The one who sent me, however, is truthful, and I tell the world only what I have heard from him."
27 They did not understand that Jesus was talking to them about the Father.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.