Bible in a Year.

On day 221, we find profound reflections on justice and mercy. Isaiah 63-64 reminds us of God's power to judge and redeem, while Ezekiel 21-22 presents the discipline of Israel and its consequences. Proverbs 13:17-20 offers practical guidance on wisdom and companionship, teaching that those who follow instruction live with discernment.

Chapter 63

1. Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful one in his robe, walking in the greatness of his strength. I, that speak justice, and am a defender to save.

2. Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like theirs that tread in the winepress?

3. I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the Gentiles there is not a man with me: I have trampled on them in my indignation, and have trodden them down in my wrath, and their blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my apparel.

4. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, the year of my redemption is come.

5. I looked about, and there was none to help: I sought, and there was none to give aid: and my own arm hath saved for me, and my indignation itself hath helped me.

6. And I have trodden down the people in my wrath, and have made them drunk in my indignation, and have brought down their strength to the earth.

7. I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord, the praise of the Lord for all the things that the Lord hath bestowed upon us, and for the multitude of his good things to the house of Israel, which he hath given them according to his kindness, and according to the multitude of his mercies.

8. And he said: Surely they are my people, children that will not deny: so he became their saviour.

9. In all their affliction he was not troubled, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love, and in his mercy he redeemed them, and he carried them and lifted them up all the days of old.

10. But they provoked to wrath, and afflicted the spirit of his Holy One: and he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

11. And he remembered the days of old of Moses, and of his people: Where is he that brought them up out of the sea, with the shepherds of his flock? where is he that put in the midst of them the spirit of his Holy One?

12. He that brought out Moses by the right hand, by the arm of his majesty: that divided the waters before them, to make himself an everlasting name.

13. He that led them out through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness that stumbleth not.

14. As a beast that goeth down in the field, the spirit of the Lord was their leader: so didst thou lead thy people to make thyself a glorious name.

15. Look down from heaven, and behold from thy holy habitation and the place of thy glory: where is thy zeal, and thy strength, the multitude of thy bowels, and of thy mercies? they have held back themselves from me.

16. For thou art our father, and Abraham hath not known us, and Israel hath been ignorant of us: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer, from everlasting is thy name.

17. Why hast thou made us to err, O Lord, from thy ways: why hast thou hardened our heart, that we should not fear thee? return for the sake of thy servants, the tribes of thy inheritance.

18. They have possessed thy holy people as nothing: our enemies have trodden down thy sanctuary.

19. We are become as in the beginning, when thou didst not rule over us, and when we were not called by thy name.

Chapter 64

1. That thou wouldst rend the heavens, and wouldst come down: the mountains would melt away at thy presence.

2. They would melt as at the burning of fire, the waters would burn with fire, that thy name might be made known to thy enemies: that the nations might tremble at thy presence.

3. When thou shalt do wonderful things, we shall not bear them: thou didst come down, and at thy presence the mountains melted away.

4. From the beginning of the world they have not heard, nor perceived with the ears: the eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee, what things thou hast prepared for them that wait for thee.

5. Thou hast met him that rejoiceth, and doth justice: in thy ways they shall remember thee: behold thou art angry, and we have sinned: in them we have been always, and we shall be saved.

6. And we are all become as one unclean, and all our justices as the rag of a menstruous woman: and we have all fallen as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

7. There is none that calleth upon thy name: that riseth up, and taketh hold of thee: thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast crushed us in the hand of our iniquity.

8. And now, O Lord, thou art our father, and we are clay: and thou art our maker, and we all are the works of thy hands.

9. Be not very angry, O Lord, and remember no longer our iniquity: behold, see we are all thy people.

10. The city of thy sanctuary is become a desert, Sion is made a desert, Jerusalem is desolate.

11. The house of our holiness, and of our glory, where our fathers praised thee, is burnt with fire, and all our lovely things are turned into ruins.

12. Wilt thou refrain thyself, O Lord, upon these things, wilt thou hold thy peace, and afflict us vehemently?

Chapter 21

1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

2. Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and let thy speech flow towards the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel:

3. And say to the land of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and will cut off in thee the just, and the wicked.

4. And forasmuch as I have cut off in thee the just, and the wicked, therefore shall my sword go forth out of its sheath against all flesh, from the south even to the north.

5. That all flesh may know that I the Lord have drawn my sword out of its sheath not to be turned back.

6. And thou, son of man, mourn with the breaking of thy loins, and with bitterness sigh before them.

7. And when they shall say to thee: Why mournest thou? thou shalt say: For that which I hear: because it cometh, and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be made feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and water shall run down every knee: behold it cometh, and it shall be done, saith the Lord God.

8. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

9. Son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God: Say: The sword, the sword is sharpened, and furbished.

10. It is sharpened to kill victims: it is furbished that it may glitter: thou removest the sceptre of my son, thou hast cut down every tree.

11. And I have given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, that it may be in the hand of the slayer.

12. Cry, and howl, 0 son of man, for this sword is upon my people, it is upon all the princes of Israel, that are fled: they are delivered up to the sword with my people, strike therefore upon thy thigh,

13. Because it is tried: and that when it shall overthrow the sceptre, and it shall not be, saith the Lord God.

14. Thou therefore, O son of man, prophesy, and strike thy hands together, and let the sword be doubled, and let the sword of the slain be tripled: this is the sword of a great slaughter, that maketh them stand amazed,

15. And languish in heart, and that multiplieth ruins. In all their gates I have set the dread of the sharp sword, the sword that is furbished to glitter, that is made ready for slaughter.

16. Be thou sharpened, go to the right hand, or to the left, which way soever thou hast a mind to set thy face.

17. And I will clap my hands together, and will satisfy my indignation: I the Lord have spoken.

18. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

19. And thou son of man, set thee two ways, for the sword of the king of Babylon to come: both shall come forth out of one land: and with his hand he shall draw lots, he shall consult at the head of the way of the city.

20. Thou shalt make a way that the sword may come to Rabbath of the children of Ammon, and to Juda unto Jerusalem the strong city.

21. For the king of Babylon stood in the highway, at the head of two ways, seeking divination, shuffling arrows: he inquired of the idols, and consulted entrails.

22. On his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in slaughter, to lift up the voice in howling, to set engines against the gates, to cast up a mount, to build forts.

23. And he shall be in their eyes as one consulting the oracle in vain, and imitating the leisure of sabbaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity that they may be taken.

24. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you have remembered your iniquity, and have discovered your prevarications, and your sins have appeared in all your devices: because, I say, you have remembered, you shall be taken with the hand.

25. But thou profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come that hath been appointed in the time of iniquity:

26. Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, take off the crown: is it not this that hath exalted the low one, and brought down him that was high?

27. I will shew it to be iniquity, iniquity, iniquity: but this was not done till he came to whom judgment belongeth, and I will give it him.

28. And thou son of man, prophesy, and say: Thus saith the Lord God concerning the children of Ammon, and concerning their reproach, and thou shalt say: sword, O sword, come out of the scabbard to kill, be furbished to destroy, and to glitter,

29. Whilst they see vain things in thy regard, and they divine lies: to bring thee upon the necks of the wicked that are wounded, whose appointed day is come in the time of iniquity.

30. Return into thy sheath. I will judge thee in the place wherein thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.

31. And I will pour out upon thee my indignation: in the fire of my rage will I blow upon thee, and will give thee into the hands of men that are brutish and contrive thy destruction.

32. Thou shalt be fuel for the fire, thy blood shall be in the midst of the land, thou shalt be forgotten: for I the Lord have spoken it.

Chapter 22

1. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

2. And thou son of man, dost thou not judge, dost thou not judge the city of blood?

3. And thou shalt shew her all her abominations, and shalt say: Thus saith the Lord God: This is the city that sheddeth blood in the midst of her, that her time may come: and that hath made idols against herself, to defile herself.

4. Thou art become guilty in thy blood which thou hast shed: and thou art defiled in thy idols which thou hast made: and thou hast made thy days to draw near, and hast brought on the time of thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach to the Gentiles, and a mockery to all countries.

5. Those that are near, and those that are far from thee, shall triumph over thee: thou filthy one, infamous, great in destruction.

6. Behold the princes of Israel, every one hath employed his arm in thee to shed blood.

7. They have abused father and mother in thee, they have oppressed the stranger in the midst of thee, they have grieved the fatherless and widow in thee.

8. Thou hast despised my sanctuaries, and profaned my sabbaths.

9. Slanderers have been in thee to shed blood, and they have eaten upon the mountains in thee, they have committed wickedness in the midst of thee.

10. They have discovered the nakedness of their father in thee, they have humbled the uncleanness of the menstruous woman in thee.

11. And every one hath committed abomination with his neighbour's wife, and the father in law hath wickedly defiled his daughter in law, the brother hath oppressed his sister the daughter of his father in thee.

12. They have taken gifts in thee to shed blood: thou hast taken usury and increase, and hast covetously oppressed thy neighbours: and then hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.

13. Behold, I have clapped my hands at thy covetousness, which thou hast exercised and at the blood that hath been shed: In the midst of thee.

14. Shall thy heart endure, or shall thy hands prevail ill the days which I will bring upon thee: I the Lord have spoken, and will do it.

15. And I will disperse thee in the nations, and will scatter thee among the countries, and I will put an end to thy uncleanness in thee.

16. And I will possess thee in the sight of the Gentiles, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.

17. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

18. Son of man, the house of Israel is become dress to me: all these are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace: they are become the dress of silver.

19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because you are all turned into dress, therefore behold I will gather you together in the midst of Jerusalem.

20. As they gather silver, and brass, and tin, and iron, and lead in the midst of the furnace: that I may kindle a fire in it to melt it: so will I gather you together in my fury and in my wrath, and will take my rest, and I will melt you down.

21. And I will gather you together, and will burn you in the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst thereof.

22. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be in the midst thereof: and you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have poured out my indignation upon you.

23. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

24. Son of man, say to her: Thou art a land that is unclean, and not rained upon in the day of wrath.

25. There is a conspiracy of prophets in the midst thereof: like a lion that roareth and catcheth the prey, they have devoured souls, they have taken riches and hire, they have made many widows in the midst thereof.

26. Her priests have despised my law, and have defiled my sanctuaries: they have put no difference between holy and profane: nor have distinguished between the polluted and the clean: and they have turned away their eyes from my sabbaths, and I was profaned in the midst of them.

27. Her princes in the midst of her, are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood, and to destroy souls, and to run after gains through covetousness.

28. And her prophets have daubed them without tempering the mortar, seeing vain things, and divining lies unto them, saying: Thus saith the Lord God: when the Lord hath not spoken.

29. The people of the land have used oppression, and committed robbery: they afflicted the needy and poor, and they oppressed the stranger by calumny without judgment.

30. And I sought among them for a man that might set up a hedge, and stand in the gap before me in favour of the land, that I might not destroy it: and I found none.

31. And I poured out my indignation upon them, in the fire of my wrath I consumed them: I have rendered their way upon their own head, saith the Lord God.

17. The messenger of the wicked shall fall into mischief: but a faithful ambassador is health.

18. Poverty and shame to him that refuseth instruction: but he that yieldeth to reproof, shall be glorified.

19. The desire that is accomplished, delighteth the soul: fools hate them that flee from evil things.

20. He that walketh with the wise, shall be wise: a friend of fools shall become like to them.