The One Year Bible TLB (16 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
Save me, O God, because I have come to you for refuge.
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I said to him, “You are my Lord; I have no other help but yours.”
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I want the company of the godly men and women in the land; they are the true nobility.
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Those choosing other gods shall all be filled with sorrow; I will not offer the sacrifices they do or even speak the names of their gods.
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The Lord himself is my inheritance, my prize. He is my food and drink, my highest joy! He guards all that is mine.
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He sees that I am given pleasant brooks and meadows as my share!
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What a wonderful inheritance!
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I will bless the Lord who counsels me; he gives me wisdom in the night. He tells me what to do.
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I am always thinking of the Lord; and because he is so near, I never need to stumble or fall.
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Heart, body, and soul are filled with joy.
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For you will not leave me among the dead; you will not allow your beloved one to rot in the grave.
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You have let me experience the joys of life and the exquisite pleasures of your own eternal presence.
Don’t withhold repayment of your debts. Don’t say “some other time,” if you can pay now.
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Don’t plot against your neighbor; he is trusting you.
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Don’t get into needless fights.
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Don’t envy violent men. Don’t copy their ways.
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For such men are an abomination to the Lord, but he gives his friendship to the godly.
January 19When Joseph arrived in Egypt as a captive of the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased from them by Potiphar, a member of the personal staff of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Now this man Potiphar was the captain of the king’s bodyguard and his chief executioner.
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The Lord greatly blessed Joseph there in the home of his master, so that everything he did succeeded.
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Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph in a very special way.
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So Joseph naturally became quite a favorite with him. Soon he was put in charge of the administration of Potiphar’s household, and all of his business affairs.
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At once the Lord began blessing Potiphar for Joseph’s sake. All his household affairs began to run smoothly, his crops flourished and his flocks multiplied.
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So Potiphar gave Joseph the complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. He hadn’t a worry in the world with Joseph there, except to decide what he wanted to eat! Joseph, by the way, was a very handsome young man.
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One day at about this time Potiphar’s wife began making eyes at Joseph, and suggested that he come and sleep with her.
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Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in the entire household;
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he himself has no more authority here than I have! He has held back nothing from me except you yourself because you are his wife. How can I do such a wicked thing as this? It would be a great sin against God.”
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But she kept on with her suggestions day after day, even though he refused to listen, and kept out of her way as much as possible.
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Then one day as he was in the house going about his work—as it happened, no one else was around at the time—
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she came and grabbed him by the sleeve
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demanding, “Sleep with me.” He tore himself away, but as he did, his jacket slipped off and she was left holding it as he fled from the house.
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When she saw that she had his jacket, and that he had fled,
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she began screaming; and when the other men around the place came running in to see what had happened, she was crying hysterically. “My husband had to bring in this Hebrew slave to insult us!” she sobbed. “He tried to rape me, but when I screamed, he ran, and forgot to take his jacket.”
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She kept the jacket, and when her husband came home that night,
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she told him her story.
“That Hebrew slave you’ve had around here tried to rape me,
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and I was only saved by my screams. He fled, leaving his jacket behind!”
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Well, when her husband heard his wife’s story, he was furious.
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He threw Joseph into prison, where the king’s prisoners were kept in chains.
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But the Lord was with Joseph there, too, and was kind to him by granting him favor with the chief jailer.
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In fact, the jailer soon handed over the entire prison administration to Joseph, so that all the other prisoners were responsible to him.
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The chief jailer had no more worries after that, for Joseph took care of everything, and the Lord was with him so that everything ran smoothly and well.
40:
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Some time later it so happened that the king of Egypt became angry with both his chief baker and his chief butler, so he jailed them both in the prison where Joseph was, in the castle of Potiphar, the captain of the guard, who was the chief executioner.
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They remained under arrest there for quite some time, and Potiphar assigned Joseph to wait on them.
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One night each of them had a dream.
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The next morning Joseph noticed that they looked dejected and sad.
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“What in the world is the matter?” he asked.
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And they replied, “We both had dreams last night, but there is no one here to tell us what they mean.”
“Interpreting dreams is God’s business,” Joseph replied. “Tell me what you saw.”
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The butler told his dream first. “In my dream,” he said, “I saw a vine with three branches that began to bud and blossom, and soon there were clusters of ripe grapes.
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I was holding Pharaoh’s wine cup in my hand, so I took the grapes and squeezed the juice into it, and gave it to him to drink.”
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“I know what the dream means,” Joseph said. “The three branches mean three days!
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Within three days Pharaoh is going to take you out of prison and give you back your job again as his chief butler.
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And please have some pity on me when you are back in his favor, and mention me to Pharaoh, and ask him to let me out of here.
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For I was kidnapped from my homeland among the Hebrews, and now this—here I am in jail when I did nothing to deserve it.”
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When the chief baker saw that the first dream had such a good meaning, he told his dream to Joseph, too.
“In my dream,” he said, “there were three baskets of pastries on my head.
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In the top basket were all kinds of bakery goods for Pharaoh, but the birds came and ate them.”
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“The three baskets mean three days,” Joseph told him. “Three days from now Pharaoh will take off your head and impale your body on a pole, and the birds will come and pick off your flesh!”
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Pharaoh’s birthday came three days later, and he held a party for all of his officials and household staff. He sent for his chief butler and chief baker, and they were brought to him from the prison.
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Then he restored the chief butler to his former position;
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but he sentenced the chief baker to be impaled, just as Joseph had predicted.
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Pharaoh’s wine taster, however, promptly forgot all about Joseph, never giving him a thought.
41:
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One night two years later, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile River,
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when suddenly, seven sleek, fat cows came up out of the river and began grazing in the grass.
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Then seven other cows came up from the river, but they were very skinny and all their ribs stood out. They went over and stood beside the fat cows.
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Then the skinny cows ate the fat ones! At which point, Pharaoh woke up!
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Soon he fell asleep again and had a second dream. This time he saw seven heads of grain on one stalk, with every kernel well formed and plump.
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Then, suddenly, seven more heads appeared on the stalk, but these were shriveled and withered by the east wind.
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And these thin heads swallowed up the seven plump, well-formed heads! Then Pharaoh woke up again and realized it was all a dream.
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Next morning, as he thought about it, he became very concerned as to what the dreams might mean; he called for all the magicians and sages of Egypt and told them about it, but not one of them could suggest what his dreams meant.
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Then the king’s wine taster spoke up. “Today I remember my sin!” he said.
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“Some time ago when you were angry with a couple of us and put me and the chief baker in jail in the castle of the captain of the guard,
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the chief baker and I each had a dream one night.
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We told the dreams to a young Hebrew fellow there who was a slave of the captain of the guard, and he told us what our dreams meant.
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And everything happened just as he said: I was restored to my position of wine taster, and the chief baker was executed, and impaled on a pole.”
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Pharaoh sent at once for Joseph. He was brought hastily from the dungeon, and after a quick shave and change of clothes, came in before Pharaoh.
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“I had a dream last night,” Pharaoh told him, “and none of these men can tell me what it means. But I have heard that you can interpret dreams, and that is why I have called for you.”
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“I can’t do it by myself,” Joseph replied, “but God will tell you what it means!”
As Jesus was speaking in a crowded house,
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his mother and brothers were outside, wanting to talk with him. When someone told him they were there,
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he remarked,
“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”
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He pointed to his disciples.
“Look!”
he said,
“these are my mother and brothers.”
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Then he added,
“Anyone who obeys my Father in heaven is my brother, sister, and mother!”
13:
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Later that same day, Jesus left the house and went down to the shore,
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where an immense crowd soon gathered. He got into a boat and taught from it while the people listened on the beach. He used many illustrations such as this one in his sermon:
“A farmer was sowing grain in his fields.
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As he scattered the seed across the ground, some fell beside a path, and the birds came and ate it.
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And some fell on rocky soil where there was little depth of earth; the plants sprang up quickly enough in the shallow soil,
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but the hot sun soon scorched them and they withered and died, for they had so little root.
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Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns choked out the tender blades.
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But some fell on good soil and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as he had planted.
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If you have ears, listen!”
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His disciples came and asked him, “Why do you always use these hard-to-understand illustrations?”
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Then he explained to them that only they were permitted to understand about the Kingdom of Heaven, and others were not.
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“For to him who has will more be given,”
he told them,
“and he will have great plenty; but from him who has not, even the little he has will be taken away. That is why I use these illustrations, so people will hear and see but not understand.
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“This fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah:
‘They hear, but don’t understand; they look, but don’t see!
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For their hearts are fat and heavy, and their ears are dull, and they have closed their eyes in sleep,
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so they won’t see and hear and understand and turn to God again, and let me heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.
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Many a prophet and godly man has longed to see what you have seen and hear what you have heard, but couldn’t.
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“Now here is the explanation of the story I told about the farmer planting grain:
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The hard path where some of the seeds fell represents the heart of a person who hears the Good News about the Kingdom and doesn’t understand it; then Satan
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comes and snatches away the seeds from his heart.
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The shallow, rocky soil represents the heart of a man who hears the message and receives it with real joy,
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but he doesn’t have much depth in his life, and the seeds don’t root very deeply, and after a while when trouble comes, or persecution begins because of his beliefs, his enthusiasm fades, and he drops out.
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The ground covered with thistles represents a man who hears the message, but the cares of this life and his longing for money choke out God’s Word, and he does less and less for God.
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The good ground represents the heart of a man who listens to the message and understands it and goes out and brings thirty, sixty, or even a hundred others into the Kingdom.”
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I am pleading for your help, O Lord; for I have been honest and have done what is right, and you must listen to my earnest cry!
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Publicly acquit me, Lord, for you are always fair.
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You have tested me and seen that I am good. You have come even in the night and found nothing amiss and know that I have told the truth.
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I have followed your commands and have not gone along with cruel and evil men.
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My feet have not slipped from your paths.
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Why am I praying like this? Because I know you will answer me, O God! Yes, listen as I pray.
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Show me your strong love in wonderful ways, O Savior of all those seeking your help against their foes.
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Protect me as you would the pupil of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings as you hover over me.
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My enemies encircle me with murder in their eyes.
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They are pitiless and arrogant. Listen to their boasting.
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They close in upon me and are ready to throw me to the ground.
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They are like lions eager to tear me apart, like young lions hiding and waiting their chance.
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Lord, arise and stand against them. Push them back! Come and save me from these men of the world whose only concern is earthly gain—these men whom you have filled with your treasures so that their children and grandchildren are rich and prosperous.
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But as for me, my contentment is not in wealth but in seeing you and knowing all is well between us. And when I awake in heaven, I will be fully satisfied, for I will see you face-to-face.