Friday in Season after Pentecost

18Verse 18. Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD! What will the Day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light. 19Verse 19. It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake. 20Verse 20. Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it? 21Verse 21. “I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. 22Verse 22. Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard. 23Verse 23. Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24Verse 24. But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 25Verse 25. Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? 26Verse 26. You have taken along Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, the idols you made for yourselves. 27Verse 27. Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.

1Verse 1. So Abram went up out of Egypt into the Negev— he and his wife and all his possessions— and Lot was with him. 2Verse 2. And Abram had become extremely wealthy in livestock and silver and gold. 3Verse 3. From the Negev he journeyed from place to place toward Bethel, until he came to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly been pitched, 4Verse 4. to the site where he had built the altar. And there Abram called on the name of the LORD. 5Verse 5. Now Lot, who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. 6Verse 6. But the land was unable to support both of them while they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they were unable to coexist. 7Verse 7. And there was discord between the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were also living in the land. 8Verse 8. So Abram said to Lot, “Please let there be no contention between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen. After all, we are kinsmen. 9Verse 9. Is not the whole land before you? Now separate yourself from me. If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.” 10Verse 10. And Lot looked out and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan, all the way to Zoar, was well watered like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11Verse 11. So Lot chose the whole plain of the Jordan for himself and set out toward the east. And Abram and Lot parted company. 12Verse 12. Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot settled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom. 13Verse 13. But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the LORD. 14Verse 14. After Lot had departed, the LORD said to Abram, “Now lift up your eyes from the place where you are, and look to the north and south and east and west, 15Verse 15. for all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever. 16Verse 16. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted. 17Verse 17. Get up and walk around the land, through its length and breadth, for I will give it to you.” 18Verse 18. So Abram moved his tent and went to live near the Oaks of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD.