a thread opens
You shall not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shall you speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment:
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.
You shall not respect persons in judgment; but you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it to me, and I will hear it.
from Exodus 23:2
And said to the judges, Take heed what you do: for you judge not for man, but for the LORD, who is with you in the judgment.
from Deuteronomy 1:17 · a strong link
Take heed now; for the LORD has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.
from II Chronicles 19:6
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 you shall not let any of your seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
from Leviticus 21:6 · a strong link
Neither shall you profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you,
from Leviticus 18:21
You shall sanctify him therefore; for he offers the bread of your God: he shall be holy to you: for I the LORD, which sanctify you, am holy.
from Leviticus 22:32
And this is the thing that you shall do to them to hallow them, to minister to me in the priest’s office: Take one young bull, and two rams without blemish,
from Leviticus 21:8
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,
In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight:
from Jude 1:24 · a strong link
According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, so that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
from Colossians 1:22
Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
from Ephesians 1:4 · a strong link
But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
from Matthew 25:34
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
from I Corinthians 2:9 · a strong link
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
By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaks.
from I John 3:12 · a strong link
And he said, What have you done? the voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.
from Hebrews 11:4 · a strong link
If my land cry against me, or that its furrows likewise complain;
from Genesis 4:10 · a strong link
a thread opens
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
from Luke 2:14 · a strong link
The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.
from Luke 1:79 · a strong link
Seek him that makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:
from Matthew 4:16
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?
Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusts in God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.
from Luke 18:7
Honor widows that are widows indeed.
from I Timothy 5:5 · a strong link
He does execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loves the stranger, in giving him food and apparel.
from I Timothy 5:3
The LORD preserves the strangers; he relieves the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.
from Deuteronomy 10:18 · a strong link
Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me.
from Psalms 146:9
Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, You are our gods: for in you the fatherless finds mercy.
from Jeremiah 49:11
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
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
from Philippians 3:8
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
from Ephesians 1:17
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing:
from Ephesians 1:3
That in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand upon the sea shore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
from Genesis 12:2
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Exodus 23:2 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