a thread opens
For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command you, saying, You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor, and to your needy, in your land.
The Vigil
Today’s scroll, one verse at a time — each linked to the last by the cross-references rather than by any model of you. The same vigil for everyone, and a different one tomorrow.
For you have the poor always with you; but me you have not always.
from Deuteronomy 15:11 · a strong link
But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother have need, and closes his heart against him, how dwells the love of God in him?
from Matthew 26:11
He answers and says to them, He that has two coats, let him impart to him that has none; and he that has food, let him do likewise.
from I John 3:17
a thread opens
Then Moses said to Aaron, This is it that the LORD spoke, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come near me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.
No man that has a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come near to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he has a blemish; he shall not come near to offer the bread of his God.
from Leviticus 10:3
They shall be holy to their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy.
from Leviticus 21:21
And the priest shall burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire to the LORD.
from Leviticus 21:6 · a strong link
You offer polluted bread upon my altar; and you say, How have we polluted you? In that you say, The table of the LORD is contemptible.
from Leviticus 3:11
But you have profaned it, in that you say, The table of the LORD is polluted; and its fruit, even his food, is contemptible.
from Malachi 1:7 · a strong link
That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in to the same maid, to profane my holy name:
from Malachi 1:12
a thread opens
Now to him that is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
But rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy.
from Jude 1:24
I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
from I Peter 4:13
Do not therefore be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but share in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God;
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if perhaps we suffer with him, so that we may be also glorified together.
from II Timothy 1:8
For to you it is given for the sake of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
from Romans 8:17
a thread opens
Woe to them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And why he slew him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
from Jude 1:11 · a strong link
An unjust man is an abomination to the just: and he that is upright in the way is abomination to the wicked.
from I John 3:12
Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate you? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against you?
from Proverbs 29:27
And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Should you help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon you from before the LORD.
from Psalms 139:21
a thread opens
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And every creature in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be to him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.
from Luke 2:14
And I saw, and, look, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze: and you shall beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain to the LORD, and their possessions to the Lord of the whole earth.
a thread opens
And shall not God give justice to his own elect, which cry day and night to him, though he bear long with them?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies.
from Luke 18:7
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now has come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brothers is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
from Romans 8:33 · a strong link
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, look, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
For, look, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.
from Luke 22:31
And the LORD shall scatter you among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, even wood and stone.
from Amos 9:9
Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that you know not, neither you nor your fathers; and there shall you serve other gods day and night; where I will not show you favor.
from Deuteronomy 28:64 · a strong link
a thread opens
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Yes doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them as rubbish, so that I may win Christ,
from Luke 14:26 · a strong link
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
from Philippians 3:8
Jesus says to him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? he that has seen me has seen the Father; and how do you say then, Show us the Father?
from II Corinthians 4:6
At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
from John 14:9
And I have declared to them your name, and will declare it: that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
from John 14:20 · a strong link
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Deuteronomy 15:11 along this chain. Today’s own vigil is laid separately.
Each verse follows the one before it along the chain a study Bible draws — a century old, public, and compiled by people arguing about Scripture rather than about how long you stay. Every card says which verse it came from and opens the chapter it belongs to. Today’s vigil is the same for every reader and is worked out from the date alone, so there is no account, no counter, and nothing stored in your browser or ours.
The text is the Lantern Modern Standard. The links are openbible.info’s cross-reference set (CC BY), the same apparatus behind the reader’s Echoes drawer. Read a whole book · Today’s table