DONNIE DAILY GEMS FOR SUNDAY JANUARY 7:
DAILY BIBLE READING
Genesis 19-21The Message (MSG)
19 1-2 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening. Lot was sitting at
the city gate. He saw them and got up to welcome them, bowing before them
and said, Please, my friends, come to my house and stay the night. Wash up.
You can rise early and be on your way refreshed.
They said, No, well sleep in the street.
3 But he insisted, wouldnt take no for an answer; and they relented and
went home with him. Lot fixed a hot meal for them and they ate.
4-5 Before they went to bed men from all over the city of Sodom, young and
old, descended on the house from all sides and boxed them in. They yelled to
Lot, Where are the men who are staying with you for the night? Bring them
out so we can have our sport with them!
6-8 Lot went out, barring the door behind him, and said, Brothers, please,
dont be vile! Look, I have two daughters, virgins; let me bring them out;
you can take your pleasure with them, but dont touch these mentheyre my
guests.
9 They said, Get lost! You drop in from nowhere and now youre going to
tell us how to run our lives. Well treat you worse than them! And they
charged past Lot to break down the door.
10-11 But the two men reached out and pulled Lot inside the house, locking
the door. Then they struck blind the men who were trying to break down the
door, both leaders and followers, leaving them groping in the dark.
12-13 The two men said to Lot, Do you have any other family here? Sons,
daughtersanybody in the city? Get them out of here, and now! Were going to
destroy this place. The outcries of victims here to God are deafening; weve
been sent to blast this place into oblivion.
14 Lot went out and warned the fiancés of his daughters, Evacuate this
place; God is about to destroy this city! But his daughters would-be
husbands treated it as a joke.
15 At break of day, the angels pushed Lot to get going, Hurry. Get your
wife and two daughters out of here before its too late and youre caught in
the punishment of the city.
16-17 Lot was dragging his feet. The men grabbed Lots arm, and the arms of
his wife and daughtersGod was so merciful to them!and dragged them to
safety outside the city. When they had them outside, Lot was told, Now run
for your life! Dont look back! Dont stop anywhere on the plainrun for the
hills or youll be swept away.
18-20 But Lot protested, No, masters, you cant mean it! I know that youve
taken a liking to me and have done me an immense favor in saving my life,
but I cant run for the mountainswho knows what terrible thing might happen
to me in the mountains and leave me for dead. Look over therethat town is
close enough to get to. Its a small town, hardly anything to it. Let me
escape there and save my lifeits a mere wide place in the road.
21-22 All right, Lot. If you insist. Ill let you have your way. And I
wont stamp out the town youve spotted. But hurry up. Run for it! I cant
do anything until you get there. Thats why the town was called Zoar, that
is, Smalltown.
23 The sun was high in the sky when Lot arrived at Zoar.
24-25 Then God rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorraha river
of lava from God out of the sky!and destroyed these cities and the entire
plain and everyone who lived in the cities and everything that grew from the
ground.
26 But Lots wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.
27-28 Abraham got up early the next morning and went to the place he had so
recently stood with God. He looked out over Sodom and Gomorrah, surveying
the whole plain. All he could see was smoke belching from the Earth, like
smoke from a furnace.
29 And thats the story: When God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was
mindful of Abraham and first got Lot out of there before he blasted those
cities off the face of the Earth.
30 Lot left Zoar and went into the mountains to live with his two daughters;
he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his daughters.
31-32 One day the older daughter said to the younger, Our father is getting
old and theres not a man left in the country by whom we can get pregnant.
Lets get our father drunk with wine and lie with him. Well get children
through our fatherits our only chance to keep our family alive.
33-35 They got their father drunk with wine that very night. The older
daughter went and lay with him. He was oblivious, knowing nothing of what
she did. The next morning the older said to the younger, Last night I slept
with my father. Tonight, its your turn. Well get him drunk again and then
you sleep with him. Well both get a child through our father and keep our
family alive. So that night they got their father drunk again and the
younger went in and slept with him. Again he was oblivious, knowing nothing
of what she did.
36-38 Both daughters became pregnant by their father, Lot. The older
daughter had a son and named him Moab, the ancestor of the present-day
Moabites. The younger daughter had a son and named him Ben-Ammi, the
ancestor of the present-day Ammonites.
20 1-2 Abraham traveled from there south to the Negev and settled down
between Kadesh and Shur. While he was camping in Gerar, Abraham said of his
wife Sarah, Shes my sister.
2-3 So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent for Sarah and took her. But God came
to Abimelech in a dream that night and told him, Youre as good as
deadthat woman you took, shes a married woman.
4-5 Now Abimelech had not yet slept with her, hadnt so much as touched her.
He said, Master, would you kill an innocent man? Didnt he tell me, Shes
my sister? And didnt she herself say, Hes my brother? I had no idea I
was doing anything wrong when I did this.
6-7 God said to him in the dream, Yes, I know your intentions were pure,
thats why I kept you from sinning against me; I was the one who kept you
from going to bed with her. So now give the mans wife back to him. Hes a
prophet and will pray for youpray for your life. If you dont give her
back, know that its certain death both for you and everyone in your
family.
8-9 Abimelech was up first thing in the morning. He called all his house
servants together and told them the whole story. They were shocked. Then
Abimelech called in Abraham and said, What have you done to us? What have I
ever done to you that you would bring on me and my kingdom this huge
offense? What youve done to me ought never to have been done.
10 Abimelech went on to Abraham, Whatever were you thinking of when you did
this thing?
11-13 Abraham said, I just assumed that there was no fear of God in this
place and that theyd kill me to get my wife. Besides, the truth is that she
is my half sister; shes my fathers daughter but not my mothers. When God
sent me out as a wanderer from my fathers home, I told her, Do me a favor;
wherever we go, tell people that Im your brother.
14-15 Then Abimelech gave Sarah back to Abraham, and along with her sent
sheep and cattle and servants, both male and female. He said, My land is
open to you; live wherever you wish.
16 And to Sarah he said, Ive given your brother a thousand pieces of
silverthat clears you of even a shadow of suspicion before the eyes of the
world. Youre vindicated.
17-18 Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his
maidservants, and they started having babies again. For God had shut down
every womb in Abimelechs household on account of Sarah, Abrahams wife.
21 1-4 God visited Sarah exactly as he said he would; God did to Sarah what
he promised: Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a son in his old age,
and at the very time God had set. Abraham named him Isaac. When his son was
eight days old, Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded.
5-6 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born.
Sarah said,
God has blessed me with laughter
and all who get the news will laugh with me!
7 She also said,
Whoever would have suggested to Abraham
that Sarah would one day nurse a baby!
Yet here I am! Ive given the old man a son!
8 The baby grew and was weaned. Abraham threw a big party on the day Isaac
was weaned.
9-10 One day Sarah saw the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham,
poking fun at her son Isaac. She told Abraham, Get rid of this slave woman
and her son. No child of this slave is going to share inheritance with my
son Isaac!
11-13 The matter gave great pain to Abrahamafter all, Ishmael was his son.
But God spoke to Abraham, Dont feel badly about the boy and your maid. Do
whatever Sarah tells you. Your descendants will come through Isaac.
Regarding your maids son, be assured that Ill also develop a great nation
from himhes your son, too.
14-16 Abraham got up early the next morning, got some food together and a
canteen of water for Hagar, put them on her back and sent her away with the
child. She wandered off into the desert of Beersheba. When the water was
gone, she left the child under a shrub and went off, fifty yards or so. She
said, I cant watch my son die. As she sat, she broke into sobs.
17-18 Meanwhile, God heard the boy crying. The angel of God called from
Heaven to Hagar, Whats wrong, Hagar? Dont be afraid. God has heard the
boy and knows the fix hes in. Up now; go get the boy. Hold him tight. Im
going to make of him a great nation.
19 Just then God opened her eyes. She looked. She saw a well of water. She
went to it and filled her canteen and gave the boy a long, cool drink.
20-21 God was on the boys side as he grew up. He lived out in the desert
and became a skilled archer. He lived in the Paran wilderness. And his
mother got him a wife from Egypt.
22-23 At about that same time, Abimelech and the captain of his troops,
Phicol, spoke to Abraham: No matter what you do, God is on your side. So
swear to me that you wont do anything underhanded to me or any of my
family. For as long as you live here, swear that youll treat me and my land
as well as Ive treated you.
24 Abraham said, I swear it.
25-26 At the same time, Abraham confronted Abimelech over the matter of a
well of water that Abimelechs servants had taken. Abimelech said, I have
no idea who did this; you never told me about it; this is the first Ive
heard of it.
27-28 So the two of them made a covenant. Abraham took sheep and cattle and
gave them to Abimelech. Abraham set aside seven sheep from his flock.
29 Abimelech said, What does this mean? These seven sheep youve set
aside.
30 Abraham said, It means that when you accept these seven sheep, you take
it as proof that I dug this well, that its my well.
31-32 Thats how the place got named Beersheba (the Oath-Well), because the
two of them swore a covenant oath there. After they had made the covenant at
Beersheba, Abimelech and his commander, Phicol, left and went back to
Philistine territory.
33-34 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and worshiped God there,
praying to the Eternal God. Abraham lived in Philistine country for a long
time.
