Daily Lectionary

Deuteronomy 11:1-25

¹ “You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.
² And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm,
³ his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land,
⁴ and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day,
⁵ and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place,
⁶ and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel.
⁷ For your eyes have seen all the great work of the LORD that he did.
⁸ “You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess,
⁹ and that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey.
¹⁰ For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables.
¹¹ But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven,
¹² a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
¹³ “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,
¹⁴ he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil.
¹⁵ And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.
¹⁶ Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them;
¹⁷ then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.
¹⁸ “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
¹⁹ You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
²⁰ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
²¹ that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.
²² For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him,
²³ then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.
²⁴ Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon, and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea.
²⁵ No one shall be able to stand against you. The LORD your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you. (ESV)

Matthew 8:18-34

¹⁸ Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side.
¹⁹ And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
²⁰ And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
²¹ Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
²² And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
²³ And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him.
²⁴ And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep.
²⁵ And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”
²⁶ And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
²⁷ And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
²⁸ And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way.
²⁹ And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”
³⁰ Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them.
³¹ And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.”
³² And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters.
³³ The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men.
³⁴ And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region. (ESV)