a thread opens
When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep with his eyes:)
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.
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he gives his beloved sleep.
from Ecclesiastes 8:16
Look, you have made my days as a handbreadth; and my age is as nothing before you: truly every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
from Psalms 127:2
Remember how short my time is: why have you made all men in vain?
from Psalms 39:5
Remember, I beg you, that you have made me as the clay; and will you bring me into dust again?
from Psalms 89:47
a thread opens
Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
I tell you, No: but, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.
from Acts 20:21
And saying, Repent you: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
from Luke 13:3
I tell you, No: but, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.
from Matthew 3:2
Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
from Luke 13:5
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
from Ezekiel 18:30
a thread opens
Be it known to you therefore, men and brothers, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins:
And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
from Acts 13:38 · a strong link
All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before you.
from Luke 24:47
Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
from Psalms 22:27
Tell, and bring them near; yes, let them take counsel together: who has declared this from ancient time? who has told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.
from Isaiah 45:22
All you, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them has declared these things? The LORD has loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans.
from Isaiah 45:21
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
from Isaiah 48:14
a thread opens
Because he has appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
from Acts 17:31
But the LORD shall endure for ever: he has prepared his throne for judgment.
from Matthew 25:31
Justice and judgment are the habitation of your throne: mercy and truth shall go before your face.
from Psalms 9:7
a thread opens
For truly against your holy child Jesus, whom you have anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.
from Acts 4:27 · a strong link
And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day he shall rise again.
from Matthew 27:2 · a strong link
And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called Pretorium; and they call together the whole band.
from Matthew 20:19
Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the Passover.
from Mark 15:16
a thread opens
You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do you.
Thus says the Lord GOD; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger among the children of Israel.
from Acts 7:51
Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness to the LORD of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and boil in it: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.
from Ezekiel 44:9
For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and sexually immoral people, and murderers, and idolaters, and whoever loves and makes a lie.
from Zechariah 14:21
And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles, neither whatever works abomination, or makes a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
from Revelation of John 22:15 · a strong link
For this you know, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor greedy man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
a thread opens
And he said to me, Depart: for I will send you far hence to the Gentiles.
But the Lord said to him, Go your way: for he is a chosen vessel to me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:
from Acts 22:21 · a strong link
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,
from Acts 9:15 · a strong link
Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.
from Galatians 1:15 · a strong link
And Moses said to the LORD, See, you say to me, Bring up this people: and you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.
from Jeremiah 1:5
Therefore now go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you: look, my Angel shall go before you: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them.
from Exodus 33:12
Look, I send an Angel before you, to keep you in the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
from Exodus 32:34
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Ecclesiastes 8:16 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