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You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
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.
Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you go, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you:
from Exodus 23:32 · a strong link
Else if you do in any wise go back, and cling to the remnant of these nations, even these that remain among you, and shall make marriages with them, and go in to them, and they to you:
from Exodus 34:12
Neither shall you make marriages with them; your daughter you shall not give to his son, nor his daughter shall you take to your son.
from Joshua 23:12 · a strong link
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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.
And said to me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
from Leviticus 10:3
Sing, O you heavens; for the LORD has done it: shout, you lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it: for the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
from Isaiah 49:3 · a strong link
Let the sea roar, and its fullness; the world, and they that dwell in it.
from Isaiah 44:23
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and its fullness.
from Psalms 98:7
The LORD reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be its glad.
from Psalms 96:11
The LORD reigns, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, with which he has girded himself: the world also is established, that it cannot be moved.
from Psalms 97:1
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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,
Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
from Jude 1:24
And now, brothers, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
from Romans 16:25
The eyes of your heart being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
from Acts 20:32
Therefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:
from Ephesians 1:18
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
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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.
But I have a few things against you, because you have there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
from Jude 1:11
Nevertheless, to avoid sexual immorality, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
Let your fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of your youth.
from I Corinthians 7:2
Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of the life of your vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all the days of your vanity: for that is your portion in this life, and in your labor which you take under the sun.
from Proverbs 5:18 · a strong link
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Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
from Luke 2:14 · a strong link
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
from Colossians 1:20 · a strong link
The thief comes not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
from I John 4:9
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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
For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands:
from I Timothy 5:5
The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
from I Peter 3:5
That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
from Titus 2:3
The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
from Titus 2:4
Let no man despise your youth; but be an example of the believers, in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
from I Timothy 5:2
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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.
Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you.
from Luke 14:26 · a strong link
Because your loving devotion is better than life, my lips shall praise you.
from Psalms 73:25 · a strong link
Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. Look, how great a forest a little fire kindles!
from Psalms 63:3
Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord GOD; Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet you are a man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God:
from James 3:5
Will you yet say before him that slays you, I am God? but you shall be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slays you.
from Ezekiel 28:2 · a strong link
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Exodus 23:32 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