2 Kings 4, 1 Timothy 1, Daniel 8, Psalm 116

2 Kings 4,

1 The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves."
 
2 Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?" "Your servant has nothing there at all," she said, "except a little oil."
 
3 Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few.
 
4 Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side."
 
5 She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring.
 
6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one." But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing.
 
7 She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."
 
8 One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat.
 
9 She said to her husband, "I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God.
 
10 Let's make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us."
 
11 One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there.
 
12 He said to his servant Gehazi, "Call the Shunammite." So he called her, and she stood before him.
 
13 Elisha said to him, "Tell her, 'You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?' " She replied, "I have a home among my own people."
 
14 "What can be done for her?" Elisha asked. Gehazi said, "Well, she has no son and her husband is old."
 
15 Then Elisha said, "Call her." So he called her, and she stood in the doorway.
 
16 "About this time next year," Elisha said, "you will hold a son in your arms." "No, my lord," she objected. "Don't mislead your servant, O man of God!"
 
17 But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.
 
18 The child grew, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers.
 
19 "My head! My head!" he said to his father. His father told a servant, "Carry him to his mother."
 
20 After the servant had lifted him up and carried him to his mother, the boy sat on her lap until noon, and then he died.
 
21 She went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, then shut the door and went out.
 
22 She called her husband and said, "Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return."
 
23 "Why go to him today?" he asked. "It's not the New Moon or the Sabbath." "It's all right," she said.
 
24 She saddled the donkey and said to her servant, "Lead on; don't slow down for me unless I tell you."
 
25 So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When he saw her in the distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, "Look! There's the Shunammite!
 
26 Run to meet her and ask her, 'Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your child all right?' " "Everything is all right," she said.
 
27 When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. Gehazi came over to push her away, but the man of God said, "Leave her alone! She is in bitter distress, but the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me why."
 
28 "Did I ask you for a son, my lord?" she said. "Didn't I tell you, 'Don't raise my hopes'?"
 
29 Elisha said to Gehazi, "Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run. If you meet anyone, do not greet him, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy's face."
 
30 But the child's mother said, "As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you." So he got up and followed her.
 
31 Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy's face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, "The boy has not awakened."
 
32 When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch.
 
33 He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the LORD.
 
34 Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy's body grew warm.
 
35 Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out upon him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
 
36 Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, "Call the Shunammite." And he did. When she came, he said, "Take your son."
 
37 She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her son and went out.
 
38 Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, "Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these men."
 
39 One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine. He gathered some of its gourds and filled the fold of his cloak. When he returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were.
 
40 The stew was poured out for the men, but as they began to eat it, they cried out, "O man of God, there is death in the pot!" And they could not eat it.
 
41 Elisha said, "Get some flour." He put it into the pot and said, "Serve it to the people to eat." And there was nothing harmful in the pot.
 
42 A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. "Give it to the people to eat," Elisha said.
 
43 "How can I set this before a hundred men?" his servant asked. But Elisha answered, "Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: 'They will eat and have some left over.' "
 
44 Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.

1 Timothy 1,

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,
 
2 To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
3 As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
 
4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work-which is by faith.
 
5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
 
6 Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk.
 
7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
 
8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.
 
9 We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,
 
10 for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers-and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
 
11 that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.
 
12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service.
 
13 Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.
 
14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
 
15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-of whom I am the worst.
 
16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
 
17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
 
18 Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight,
 
19 holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.
 
20 Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.

Daniel 8,

1 In the third year of King Belshazzar's reign, I, Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had already appeared to me.
 
2 In my vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa in the province of Elam; in the vision I was beside the Ulai Canal.
 
3 I looked up, and there before me was a ram with two horns, standing beside the canal, and the horns were long. One of the horns was longer than the other but grew up later.
 
4 I watched the ram as he charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against him, and none could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great.
 
5 As I was thinking about this, suddenly a goat with a prominent horn between his eyes came from the west, crossing the whole earth without touching the ground.
 
6 He came toward the two-horned ram I had seen standing beside the canal and charged at him in great rage.
 
7 I saw him attack the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering his two horns. The ram was powerless to stand against him; the goat knocked him to the ground and trampled on him, and none could rescue the ram from his power.
 
8 The goat became very great, but at the height of his power his large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.
 
9 Out of one of them came another horn, which started small but grew in power to the south and to the east and toward the Beautiful Land.
 
10 It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them.
 
11 It set itself up to be as great as the Prince of the host; it took away the daily sacrifice from him, and the place of his sanctuary was brought low.
 
12 Because of rebellion, the host of the saints and the daily sacrifice were given over to it. It prospered in everything it did, and truth was thrown to the ground.
 
13 Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him, "How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled-the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, the rebellion that causes desolation, and the surrender of the sanctuary and of the host that will be trampled underfoot?"
 
14 He said to me, "It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated."
 
15 While I, Daniel, was watching the vision and trying to understand it, there before me stood one who looked like a man.
 
16 And I heard a man's voice from the Ulai calling, "Gabriel, tell this man the meaning of the vision."
 
17 As he came near the place where I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate. "Son of man," he said to me, "understand that the vision concerns the time of the end."
 
18 While he was speaking to me, I was in a deep sleep, with my face to the ground. Then he touched me and raised me to my feet.
 
19 He said: "I am going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath, because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end.
 
20 The two-horned ram that you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia.
 
21 The shaggy goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes is the first king.
 
22 The four horns that replaced the one that was broken off represent four kingdoms that will emerge from his nation but will not have the same power.
 
23 "In the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a stern-faced king, a master of intrigue, will arise.
 
24 He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy the mighty men and the holy people.
 
25 He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.
 
26 "The vision of the evenings and mornings that has been given you is true, but seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future."
 
27 I, Daniel, was exhausted and lay ill for several days. Then I got up and went about the king's business. I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding.

Psalm 116

1 I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.
 
2 Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.
 
3 The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came upon me; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.
 
4 Then I called on the name of the LORD: "O LORD, save me!"
 
5 The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.
 
6 The LORD protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, he saved me.
 
7 Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.
 
8 For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling,
 
9 that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living.
 
10 I believed; therefore I said, "I am greatly afflicted."
 
11 And in my dismay I said, "All men are liars."
 
12 How can I repay the LORD for all his goodness to me?
 
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD.
 
14 I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.
 
15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
 
16 O LORD, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant; you have freed me from my chains.
 
17 I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the LORD.
 
18 I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people,
 
19 in the courts of the house of the LORD-in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD.