The Wartburg Project

Daily Lectionary

December 12, 2021

December 11, 2021 December 13, 2021

These daily readings from the EHV follow the one-year daily lectionary provided in Christian Worship: Hymnal, the Lutheran Service Book, and the Treasury of Daily Prayer. In this lectionary, two readings of 15-25 verses each are provided for each day. Under this plan, nearly all of the New Testament and approximately one-third of the Old Testament are read each year. These readings fit well within the daily offices of Matins, Vespers, or Compline as daily family devotions.

Isaiah 29:1-14

Woe to the City of David
291Woe to Ariel![] Ariel, the city where David made his camp.
Add one year to another.
Let your cycle of festivals roll on.
2But then I will bring distress to Ariel,
and there will be mourning and lamentation.
Then she will become an altar hearth[] to me.
3I will encamp against you on all sides,
and I will lay siege against you with towers.[]
I will raise siege works against you.
4You will be brought so low
that you will speak from the ground.
You will murmur from the dust.
Your voice will be like a ghost from a pit in the ground,
and your speech will whisper from the dust.
5But your many foes will become like fine dust,
and the ruthless hordes like blowing chaff.
This will take place suddenly, in an instant.
6You will be visited by the Lord of Armies
with thunder, earthquake, and a loud noise,
with a strong wind and a storm,
and with the flames of a devouring fire.
7The hordes of nations that fight against Ariel,
all who fight against her and her stronghold,
all who besiege her—
all of them will be like a dream,
like a vision in the night.
8They will be like a hungry man who dreams and sees himself eating,
but then he wakes up, and his hunger is not satisfied.
They will be like a thirsty man who dreams and sees himself drinking,
but then he wakes up and, sure enough, he is weak with thirst.
That is how it will be with the hordes of nations that fight against Mount Zion.
9Be stunned! Be amazed!
Blind yourselves and be blind!
They are drunk, but not with wine.
They stagger, but not from beer.[]
10For the Lord has poured out a spirit of deep sleep over you.
He has closed your eyes—the prophets.
He has covered your heads—the seers.
11For you this whole vision has become like the words of a sealed scroll. If you give it to someone who can read, and you say, “Read this, please,” he will say, “I can't. It is sealed.” 12And if you give it to someone who cannot read, and you say, “Read this, please,” he will say, “I can't read.”
13The Lord says:
These people approach me with their words,
and they honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their way of worshipping me is nothing but commandments taught by men.[]
14So watch how I will continue to amaze these people
with amazing, extraordinary things.
The wisdom of the wise will perish,
and the intelligence of the intelligent will be hidden.

Jude 1-25

Greeting
11Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
To those who are called, who are loved[] in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
2Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Ungodly Teachers Who Slipped In Secretly
3Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you concerning the salvation we share, I felt it was necessary for me to write, to urge you to continue to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once and for all. 4For certain individuals slipped in secretly, about whom it was written some time ago that they are condemned. They are ungodly people who turn the grace of our God into a license for sin and deny our only Master[] and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5I want to remind you, though you already know all these things, that after the Lord[] rescued his people out of the land of Egypt, he later destroyed those who did not believe. 6And the angels who did not keep their position of authority but left their own dwelling place behind—God has kept them in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. 7Like Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who in a similar way indulged in extreme sexual immorality and pursued homosexual perversion,[] they serve as an example of those who are going to suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
8Yet, in the very same way, these dreamers are defiling the flesh, despising authority, and blaspheming glorious ones. 9But when the archangel Michael was disputing with the Devil and arguing about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a blasphemous condemnation against him. Instead he said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
10But these people do not understand what they are blaspheming. They are being destroyed by the very things that they know by instinct (like unreasoning animals). 11Woe to them! They have gone the way of Cain. They have abandoned themselves for hire to the error of Balaam. They perished in Korah's rebellion.
12These people are filthy stains on[] your love feasts when they eat with you without fear, shepherding themselves. They are clouds without rain, being driven along by the winds. They are autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots. 13They are wild waves of the sea piling up the foam of their own shame. They are wandering stars for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved for eternity.
14Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about these people, saying, “Look, the Lord is going to come with tens of thousands of his holy ones, 15to execute judgment against all of them and to convict every soul concerning all their ungodly deeds, which they did in an ungodly way, and concerning all the harsh words that ungodly sinners spoke against him.” 16These are discontented grumblers, who walk according to their lusts, and their mouths speak boastful things as they flatter others to take advantage of them.
Keep Yourselves in God's Love
17But you, dear friends, remember the words that were spoken earlier by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers who follow their own ungodly lusts.”[] 19These are the people who cause divisions. They are worldly because they do not have the Spirit.
20But you, dear friends, continue to build yourselves up in your most holy faith as you keep praying in the Holy Spirit. 21Keep yourselves in God's love as you continue to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, which results in eternal life. 22Show mercy to those who are wavering.[] 23Save others by snatching them out of the fire. Show mercy to still others with fear,[] hating even the clothing that is stained by the flesh.
24Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless in the presence of his glory with great joy, 25to the only[] God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all time, now, and to all eternity. Amen.