Contemplative Bible Reading

Judges 6:13 (New Living Translation) 13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn’t they say, ‘The Lord brought us up out of Egypt’? But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over […]

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Judges 10:13-14 (New Living Translation) 13 Yet you have abandoned me and served other gods. So I will not rescue you anymore. 14 Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen! Let them rescue you in your hour of distress!” Sometimes life is tough. Sometimes we stray from the people who truly love […]

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Judges 9:22-23 (New Living Translation) 22 After Abimelech had ruled over Israel for three years, 23 God sent a spirit that stirred up trouble between Abimelech and the leading citizens of Shechem, and they revolted. This is part of the (hi)story of the Judges who ruled Israel before the kings. The fellow named Abimelech ruled […]

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Judges 10:11-12 (New Living Translation) 11 The Lord replied, “Did I not rescue you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, 12 the Sidonians, the Amalekites, and the Maonites? When they oppressed you, you cried out to me for help, and I rescued you.” This is a long list of rescues. God is […]

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Judges 21:25 (New Living Translation) 25 In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. This sentence appears four times in the book of Judges. There are many explanations and interpretations of it. Some reflect good on the people while others reflect bad. There are times […]

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Judges 12:5-6 (New Living Translation) 5 Jephthah captured the shallow crossings of the Jordan River, and whenever a fugitive from Ephraim tried to go back across, the men of Gilead would challenge him. “Are you a member of the tribe of Ephraim?” they would ask. If the man said, “No, I’m not,” 6 they would […]

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Judges 3:5-6 (New Living Translation) 5 So the people of Israel lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, 6 and they intermarried with them. Israelite sons married their daughters, and Israelite daughters were given in marriage to their sons. And the Israelites served their gods. The people of Israel moved into the […]

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Judges 13:8 (New Living Translation) Then Manoah prayed to the Lord, saying, “Lord, please let the man of God come back to us again and give us more instructions about this son who is to be born.” Please God, send us a person to give us more instructions. Hmmm, how often do we pray and […]

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Judges 13:1 (New Living Translation) Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who oppressed them for forty years. Bad times; very bad times. God handed His people over to the Philistines. The Philistines oppressed God’s people politically for forty years. That political persecution was […]

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Judges 13 (New Living Translation) 6 The woman ran and told her husband, “A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God’s angels, terrifying to see. … 16 “I will stay,” the angel of the Lord replied, “but I will not eat anything. However, you may prepare a burnt offering as […]

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