Daily Bible GNT March 21 Scroll

The Rich Young Man
(Mark 10.17-31; Luke 18.18-30)

Matthew 19 ¹⁶Once a man came to Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what good thing must I do to receive eternal life?"

¹⁷"Why do you ask me concerning what is good?" answered Jesus. "There is only One who is good. Keep the commandments if you want to enter life."

¹⁸"What commandments?" he asked.

Jesus answered, "Do not commit murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not accuse anyone falsely; ¹⁹respect your father and your mother; and love your neighbor as you love yourself."

²⁰"I have obeyed all these commandments," the young man replied. "What else do I need to do?"

²¹Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me."

²²When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he was very rich.

²³Jesus then said to his disciples, "I assure you: it will be very hard for rich people to enter the Kingdom of heaven. ²⁴I repeat: it is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle."

²⁵When the disciples heard this, they were completely amazed. "Who, then, can be saved?" they asked.

²⁶Jesus looked straight at them and answered, "This is impossible for human beings, but for God everything is possible."

²⁷Then Peter spoke up. "Look," he said, "we have left everything and followed you. What will we have?"

²⁸Jesus said to them, "You can be sure that when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne in the New Age, then you twelve followers of mine will also sit on thrones, to rule the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake, will receive a hundred times more and will be given eternal life. ³⁰But many who now are first will be last, and many who now are last will be first.

The Place Named Taberah

Numbers 11 The people began to complain to the LORD about their troubles. When the LORD heard them, he became angry and sent fire on the people. It burned among them and destroyed one end of the camp. ²The people cried out to Moses for help; he prayed to the LORD, and the fire died down. ³So the place was named Taberah, because there the fire of the LORD burned among them.

Moses Chooses Seventy Leaders

⁴There were foreigners traveling with the Israelites. They had a strong craving for meat, and even the Israelites themselves began to complain: "If only we could have some meat! ⁵In Egypt we used to eat all the fish we wanted, and it cost us nothing. Remember the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic we had? ⁶But now our strength is gone. There is nothing at all to eat--nothing but this manna day after day!"

( ⁷ Manna was like small seeds, whitish yellow in color. ^8-9It fell on the camp at night along with the dew. The next morning the people would go around and gather it, grind it or pound it into flour, and then boil it and make it into flat cakes. It tasted like bread baked with olive oil.)

¹⁰Moses heard all the people complaining as they stood around in groups at the entrances of their tents. He was distressed because the LORD had become angry with them, ¹¹and he said to the LORD, "Why have you treated me so badly? Why are you displeased with me? Why have you given me the responsibility for all these people? ¹²I didn't create them or bring them to birth! Why should you ask me to act like a nurse and carry them in my arms like babies all the way to the land you promised to their ancestors? ¹³Where could I get enough meat for all these people? They keep whining and asking for meat. ¹⁴I can't be responsible for all these people by myself; it's too much for me! ¹⁵If you are going to treat me like this, have pity on me and kill me, so that I won't have to endure your cruelty any longer."

¹⁶The LORD said to Moses, "Assemble seventy respected men who are recognized as leaders of the people, bring them to me at the Tent of my presence, and tell them to stand there beside you. ¹⁷I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the spirit I have given you and give it to them. Then they can help you bear the responsibility for these people, and you will not have to bear it alone. ¹⁸Now tell the people, 'Purify yourselves for tomorrow; you will have meat to eat. The LORD has heard you whining and saying that you wished you had some meat and that you were better off in Egypt. Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will have to eat it. ¹⁹You will have to eat it not just for one or two days, or five, or ten, or even twenty days, ²⁰but for a whole month, until it comes out of your ears, until you are sick of it. This will happen because you have rejected the LORD who is here among you and have complained to him that you should never have left Egypt.'"

²¹Moses said to the LORD, "Here I am leading 600,000 people, and you say that you will give them enough meat for a month? ²²Could enough cattle and sheep be killed to satisfy them? Are all the fish in the sea enough for them?"

²³"Is there a limit to my power?" the LORD answered. "You will soon see whether what I have said will happen or not!"

²⁴So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He assembled seventy of the leaders and placed them around the Tent. ²⁵Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him. He took some of the spirit he had given to Moses and gave it to the seventy leaders. When the spirit came on them, they began to shout like prophets, but not for long.

²⁶Two of the seventy leaders, Eldad and Medad, had stayed in the camp and had not gone out to the Tent. There in the camp the spirit came on them, and they too began to shout like prophets. ²⁷A young man ran out to tell Moses what Eldad and Medad were doing.

²⁸Then Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses' helper since he was a young man, spoke up and said to Moses, "Stop them, sir!"

²⁹Moses answered, "Are you concerned about my interests? I wish that the LORD would give his spirit to all his people and make all of them shout like prophets!" ³⁰Then Moses and the seventy leaders of Israel went back to camp.

The LORD Sends Quails

³¹Suddenly the LORD sent a wind that brought quails from the sea, flying three feet above the ground. They settled on the camp and all around it for miles and miles in every direction. ³²So all that day, all night, and all the next day, the people worked catching quails; no one gathered less than fifty bushels. They spread them out to dry all around the camp. ³³While there was still plenty of meat for them to eat, the LORD became angry with the people and caused an epidemic to break out among them. ³⁴That place was named Kibroth Hattaavah (which means "Graves of Craving"), because there they buried the people who had craved meat.

³⁵From there the people moved to Hazeroth, where they made camp.

Miriam Is Punished

Numbers 12 Moses had married a Cushite woman, and Miriam and Aaron criticized him for it. ²They said, "Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Hasn't he also spoken through us?" The LORD heard what they said. ( ³Moses was a humble man, more humble than anyone else on earth.)

⁴Suddenly the LORD said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, "I want the three of you to come out to the Tent of my presence." They went, ⁵and the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, stood at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, "Aaron! Miriam!" The two of them stepped forward, ⁶and the LORD said, "Now hear what I have to say! When there are prophets among you, I reveal myself to them in visions and speak to them in dreams. ⁷It is different when I speak with my servant Moses; I have put him in charge of all my people Israel. ⁸So I speak to him face-to-face, clearly and not in riddles; he has even seen my form! How dare you speak against my servant Moses?"

⁹The LORD was angry with them; and so as he departed ¹⁰and the cloud left the Tent, Miriam's skin was suddenly covered with a dreaded disease and turned as white as snow. When Aaron looked at her and saw that she was covered with the disease, ¹¹he said to Moses, "Please, sir, do not make us suffer this punishment for our foolish sin. ¹²Don't let her become like something born dead with half its flesh eaten away."

¹³So Moses cried out to the LORD, "O God, heal her!"

¹⁴The LORD answered, "If her father had spit in her face, she would have to bear her disgrace for seven days. So let her be shut out of the camp for a week, and after that she can be brought back in." ¹⁵Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until she was brought back in. ¹⁶Then they left Hazeroth and set up camp in the wilderness of Paran.

Ecclesiastes 8 Only the wise know what things really mean. Wisdom makes them smile and makes their frowns disappear.

Obey the King

²Do what the king says, and don't make any rash promises to God. ³The king can do anything he likes, so depart from his presence; don't stay in such a dangerous place. ⁴The king acts with authority, and no one can challenge what he does. ⁵As long as you obey his commands, you are safe, and a wise person knows how and when to do it. ⁶There is a right time and a right way to do everything, but we know so little! ⁷None of us knows what is going to happen, and there is no one to tell us. ⁸No one can keep from dying or put off the day of death. That is a battle we cannot escape; we cannot cheat our way out.

The Wicked and the Righteous

⁹I saw all this when I thought about the things that are done in this world, a world where some people have power and others have to suffer under them. ¹⁰Yes, I have seen the wicked buried and in their graves, but on the way back from the cemetery people praise them in the very city where they did their evil. It is useless.

¹¹Why do people commit crimes so readily? Because crime is not punished quickly enough. ¹²A sinner may commit a hundred crimes and still live. Oh yes, I know what they say: "If you obey God, everything will be all right, ¹³but it will not go well for the wicked. Their life is like a shadow and they will die young, because they do not obey God." ¹⁴But this is nonsense. Look at what happens in the world: sometimes the righteous get the punishment of the wicked, and the wicked get the reward of the righteous. I say it is useless.

¹⁵So I am convinced that we should enjoy ourselves, because the only pleasure we have in this life is eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves. We can at least do this as we labor during the life that God has given us in this world.

¹⁶Whenever I tried to become wise and learn what goes on in the world, I realized that you could stay awake night and day ¹⁷and never be able to understand what God is doing. However hard you try, you will never find out. The wise may claim to know, but they don't.

This reading is from The Holy Bible, Today's English Version, Second Edition copyright © American Bible Society, 1992;
Old Testament copyright © American Bible Society, 1976, 1992; New Testament © American Bible Society, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1992.

These daily Bible readings from the Good News Translation (GNT), formerly the Today's English Version (TEV), are published by BibleNetUSA. The web site and BibleCard® designs are by iCreative. All BibleCard® images are copyrighted by iCreative. All rights reserved.