Daily readings for Friday, 23 January 2015

Daily readings for Friday, 23 January 2015
Hebrews 8:6 Now Christ has been appointed to serve as a priest in a much better way, and he has given us much assurance of a better agreement.
7 If the first agreement with God had been all right, there would not have been any need for another one. 8 But the Lord found fault with it and said,
“I tell you the time will come,
when I will make
    a new agreement
with the people of Israel
    and the people of Judah.
9 It won’t be like the agreement
that I made
    with their ancestors,
when I took them by the hand
    and led them out of Egypt.
They broke their agreement
    with me,
and I stopped caring
    about them!
10 “But now I tell the people
of Israel
    this is my new agreement:
‘The time will come
    when I, the Lord,
will write my laws
    on their minds and hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be
    my people.
11 Not one of them
will have to teach another
    to know me, their Lord.'
“All of them will know me,
    no matter who they are.
12 I will treat them with kindness,
even though they are wicked.
    I will forget their sins.”
13 When the Lord talks about a new agreement, he means that the first one is out of date. And anything that is old and useless will soon disappear.
Psalms 85:8 I will listen to you, Lord God,
    because you promise peace
to those
    who are faithful
    and no longer foolish.
10 Love and loyalty
    will come together;
    goodness and peace
    will unite.
11 Loyalty will sprout
    from the ground;
    justice will look down
    from the sky above.
12 Our Lord, you will bless us;
    our land will produce
    wonderful crops.
13 Justice will march in front,
    making a path
    for you to follow.
Mark 3: Jesus Chooses His Twelve Apostles
13 Jesus decided to ask some of his disciples to go up on a mountain with him, and they went. 14 Then he chose twelve of them to be his apostles,[a] so that they could be with him. He also wanted to send them out to preach 15 and to force out demons. 16 Simon was one of the twelve, and Jesus named him Peter. 17 There were also James and John, the two sons of Zebedee. Jesus called them Boanerges, which means “Thunderbolts.” 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus were also apostles. The others were Simon, known as the Eager One,[b] 19 and Judas Iscariot,[c] who later betrayed Jesus.[Footnotes:
3.14 to be his apostles: These words are not in some manuscripts.
3.18 known as the Eager One: The Greek text has “Cananaean,” which probably comes from a Hebrew word meaning “zealous” (see Luke 6.15). “Zealot” was the name later given to the members of a Jewish group that resisted and fought against the Romans.
3.19 Iscariot: This may mean “a man from Kerioth” (a place in Judea). But more probably it means “a man who was a liar” or “a man who was a betrayer.”]

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