|
2 July 2011
Fatherly Advice- Extracted from Proverbs, Chapter 2:
1 My child, if you take my words to heart, if you set store by my commandments,
2 tuning your ear to wisdom, tuning your heart to understanding,
3 yes, if your plea is for clear perception, if you cry out for understanding,
4 if you look for it as though for silver, search for it as though for buried treasure,
5 then you will understand what the fear of Yahweh is, and discover the knowledge of God.
6 For Yahweh himself is giver of wisdom, from his mouth issue knowledge and understanding.
7 He reserves his advice for the honest, a shield to those whose ways are sound;
8 he stands guard over the paths of equity, he keeps watch over the way of those faithful to him.
9 Then you will understand uprightness, equity and fair dealing, the paths that lead to happiness.
10 When wisdom comes into your heart and knowledge fills your soul with delight,
11 then prudence will be there to watch over you, and understanding will be your guardian
12 to keep you from the way that is evil, from those whose speech is deceitful,
13 from those who leave the paths of honesty to walk the roads of darkness:
14 those who find their joy in doing wrong, and their delight in deceitfulness,
15 whose tracks are twisted, and the paths that they tread crooked.
16 To keep you, too, from the woman who belongs to another, from the stranger, with her wheedling words;
17 she has left the partner of her younger days, she has forgotten the covenant of her God;
18 her house is tilting towards Death, down to the Shades go her paths.
19 Of those who go to her not one returns, they never regain the paths of life.
20 Thus you will tread the way of good people, persisting in the paths of the upright.
21 For the land will be for the honest to live in, the innocent will have it for their home;
22 while the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the faithless rooted out of it. |
|
Extracted from the first letter of St. John, Chapter 4: 7-16
My dear people, let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love.
God’s love for us was revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him; this is the love that I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.
My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another. No one has even seen God; but as long as we love one another God will live in us and his love will be complete in us.
We can know that we are living in him and he is living in us because he lets us share his Spirit.
We ourselves saw and we testify that the Father sent his Son as saviour of the world.
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God.
We ourselves have known and put our faith in God’s love towards ourselves.
God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. 9 July 2011
|
|
The Blessings of Abraham - Extracted from Genesis, Chapter 17: Believe in Miracles- For with God all things are possible
1 When Abram was 99 years old Yahweh appeared to him and said, 'I am El Shaddai. Live in my presence, be perfect,
2 and I shall grant a covenant between myself and you, and make you very numerous.'
3 And Abram bowed to the ground. God spoke to him as follows,
4 'For my part, this is my covenant with you: you will become the father of many nations.
5 And you are no longer to be called Abram; your name is to be Abraham, for I am making you father of many nations.
6 I shall make you exceedingly fertile. I shall make you into nations, and your issue will be kings.
7 And I shall maintain my covenant between myself and you, and your descendants after you, generation after generation, as a covenant in perpetuity, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.
8 And to you and to your descendants after you, I shall give the country where you are now immigrants, the entire land of Canaan, to own in perpetuity. And I shall be their God.'
9 God further said to Abraham, 'You for your part must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation.
15 Furthermore God said to Abraham, 'As regards your wife Sarai, you must not call her Sarai, but Sarah.
16 I shall bless her and moreover give you a son by her. I shall bless her and she will become nations: kings of peoples will issue from her.'
17 Abraham bowed to the ground, and he laughed, thinking to himself, 'Is a child to be born to a man 100 years old, and will Sarah have a child at the age of 90?'
18 Abraham said to God, 'May Ishmael live in your presence! That will be enough!'
19 But God replied, 'Yes, your wife Sarah will bear you a son whom you must name Isaac. And I shall maintain my covenant with him, a covenant in perpetuity, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him.
20 For Ishmael too I grant you your request. I hereby bless him and will make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I shall make him into a great nation.
21 But my covenant I shall maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear you at this time next year.'
22 When he had finished speaking to Abraham, God went up from him.
2 July 2011 9 July 2011
Extracted from Genesis, Chapter 28:
10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran.
11 When he had reached a certain place, he stopped there for the night, since the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he made it his pillow and lay down where he was.
12 He had a dream: there was a ladder, planted on the ground with its top reaching to heaven; and God's angels were going up and down on it.
13 And there was Yahweh, standing beside him and saying, 'I, Yahweh, am the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The ground on which you are lying I shall give to you and your descendants.
14 Your descendants will be as plentiful as the dust on the ground; you will spread out to west and east, to north and south, and all clans on earth will bless themselves by you and your descendants.
15 Be sure, I am with you; I shall keep you safe wherever you go, and bring you back to this country, for I shall never desert you until I have done what I have promised you.'
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, 'Truly, Yahweh is in this place and I did not know!'
17 He was afraid and said, 'How awe-inspiring this place is! This is nothing less than the abode of God, and this is the gate of heaven!'
18 Early next morning, Jacob took the stone he had used for his pillow, and set it up as a pillar, pouring oil over the top of it.
19 He named the place Bethel, but before that the town had been called Luz.
20 Jacob then made this vow, 'If God remains with me and keeps me safe on this journey I am making, if he gives me food to eat and clothes to wear,
21 and if I come home safe to my father's home, then Yahweh shall be my God.
22 This stone I have set up as a pillar is to be a house of God, and I shall faithfully pay you a tenth part of everything you give me.' |
