Reflective Bible Study

¹ My son, if you will receive my words
And treasure my commandments within you,
² Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
³ For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
⁴ If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
⁵ Then you will discern the fear of the LORD
And discover the knowledge of God.
⁶ For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
⁷ He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
⁸ Guarding the paths of justice,
And He preserves the way of His godly ones.
⁹ Then you will discern righteousness and justice
And equity and every good course.
¹⁰ For wisdom will enter your heart
And knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
¹¹ Discretion will guard you,
Understanding will watch over you,
¹² To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things;
¹³ From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To walk in the ways of darkness;
¹⁴ Who delight in doing evil
And rejoice in the perversity of evil;
¹⁵ Whose paths are crooked,
And who are devious in their ways;
¹⁶ To deliver you from the strange woman,
From the adulteress who flatters with her words;
¹⁷ That leaves the companion of her youth
And forgets the covenant of her God;
¹⁸ For her house sinks down to death
And her tracks lead to the dead;
¹⁹ None who go to her return again,
Nor do they reach the paths of life.
²⁰ So you will walk in the way of good men
And keep to the paths of the righteous.
²¹ For the upright will live in the land
And the blameless will remain in it;
²² But the wicked will be cut off from the land
And the treacherous will be uprooted from it.

Read Proverbs 2:1-22 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

¹ My spirit is broken;
    the days of my life are almost gone.
    The grave is waiting for me.
² Those who laugh at me surround me;
    I watch them insult me.

³ “God, make me a promise.
    No one will make a pledge for me.
⁴ You have closed their minds to understanding.
    Do not let them win over me.
⁵ People might speak against their friends for money,
    but if they do, the eyes of their children go blind.

⁶ “God has made my name a curse word;
    people spit in my face.
⁷ My sight has grown weak because of my sadness,
    and my body is as thin as a shadow.
⁸ Honest people are upset about this;
    innocent people are upset with those who do wrong.
⁹ But those who do right will continue to do right,
    and those whose hands are not dirty with sin will grow stronger.

¹⁰ “But, all of you, come and try again!
    I do not find a wise person among you.
¹¹ My days are gone, and my plans have been destroyed,
    along with the desires of my heart.
¹² These men think night is day;
    when it is dark, they say, ‘Light is near.’
¹³ If the only home I hope for is the grave,
    if I spread out my bed in darkness,
¹⁴ if I say to the grave, ‘You are my father,’
    and to the worm, ‘You are my mother’ or ‘You are my sister,’
¹⁵ where, then, is my hope?
    Who can see any hope for me?
¹⁶ Will hope go down to the gates of death?
    Will we go down together into the dust?”

Read Job 17:1-16 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

¹ “‘If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.

² “‘If anyone becomes aware that they are guilty—if they unwittingly touch anything ceremonially unclean (whether the carcass of an unclean animal, wild or domestic, or of any unclean creature that moves along the ground)and they are unaware that they have become unclean, but then they come to realize their guilt; ³ or if they touch human uncleanness (anything that would make them unclean) even though they are unaware of it, but then they learn of it and realize their guilt; ⁴ or if anyone thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything, whether good or evil (in any matter one might carelessly swear about) even though they are unaware of it, but then they learn of it and realize their guilt— ⁵ when anyone becomes aware that they are guilty in any of these matters, they must confess in what way they have sinned. ⁶ As a penalty for the sin they have committed, they must bring to the Lord a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for them for their sin.

Read Leviticus 5:1-6 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!

¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁹ And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰ The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. ²¹ No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. ²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”

Read Mark 2:18-22 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!