Contemplative Bible Reading

Isaiah 3:5 (New Living Translation) Young people will insult their elders, and vulgar people will sneer at the honorable. The is part of a passage about God judging and punishing the people. It is a long list including the scarcity of food and water—necessities for life. And here we have another punishing: youth disrespecting those […]

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Isaiah 37:7 (New Living Translation) “Listen! I myself will move against him, and the king will receive a message that he is needed at home. So he will return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.’” The prophet Isaiah is speaking to King Hezekiah about the King of Assyria. The […]

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Isaiah 58:6-7 (New Living Translation) 6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. 7 Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. […]

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Isaiah 40: (New Living Translation) 1 “Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. 2 “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned. Yes, the Lord has punished her twice over for all her sins.” 3 Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through […]

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Isaiah 30:10 (New Living Translation) They tell the seers, “Stop seeing visions!” They tell the prophets, “Don’t tell us what is right. Tell us nice things. Tell us lies. The people didn’t want to hear the message that God was sending them via the prophets. Their own disobedience had eroded them. “Please,” the pleaded. “Tell […]

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Isaiah 58:6-7 (New Living Translation) 6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. 7 Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. […]

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Isaiah 58:3 (New Living Translation) ‘We have fasted before you!’ they say. ‘Why aren’t you impressed? We have been very hard on ourselves, and you don’t even notice it!’ In this verse, the people are crying to Jehovah for justification (we are good, don’t punish us). They cry that they have been very hard on […]

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Isaiah 56:3-5 (New Living Translation) 3 “Don’t let foreigners who commit themselves to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will never let me be part of his people.’ And don’t let the eunuchs say, ‘I’m a dried-up tree with no children and no future.’ 4 For this is what the Lord says: I will bless those eunuchs […]

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Isaiah 2:5 (New Living Translation) Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord! Light. Sure seems to be a better place than dark. I suppose that in our post(post(post))modern world, we don’t appreciate the idea of light and dark. We are always in the light physically. It is rare and […]

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Isaiah 25:6-8 (New Living Translation) 6 In Jerusalem, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat. 7 There he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the […]

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