a thread opens
As free, and not using your liberty for a cover for evil, but as the servants of God.
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 he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant.
from I Peter 2:16
Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?
from I Corinthians 7:22 · a strong link
But be not you called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all you are brothers.
from Philemon 1:16 · a strong link
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.
Speak to Aaron, saying, Whoever he be of your seed in their generations that has any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
from Leviticus 10:3
Blessed is the man whom you choose, and cause to approach to you, so that he may dwell in your courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, even of your holy temple.
from Leviticus 21:17
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.
from Psalms 65:4 · a strong link
Happy are you, O Israel: who is like you, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of your help, and who is the sword of your excellence! and your enemies shall be found liars to you; and you shall tread upon their high places.
from Psalms 33:12
And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shines in his strength.
from Deuteronomy 33:29
And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, so that with it he should strike the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
from Revelation of John 1:16 · a strong link
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,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
from Jude 1:24 · a strong link
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
from Ephesians 5:27
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
from Hebrews 9:14 · a strong link
Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
from Hebrews 9:12
And the priests killed them, and they made reconciliation with their blood upon the altar, to make an atonement for all Israel: for the king commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.
from Daniel 9:24
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.
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
Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but sexually immoral people and adulterers God will judge.
Lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.
from Hebrews 13:4
That you abstain from foods offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from sexual immorality: from which if you keep yourselves, you shall do well. Farewell.
from Hebrews 12:16
a thread opens
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Surely his salvation is near them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.
from Luke 2:14
For I, says the LORD, will be to her a wall of fire around, and will be the glory in the midst of her.
from Psalms 85:9 · a strong link
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.
from Zechariah 2:5
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?
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
from Luke 18:7 · a strong link
Beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.
Say not, I will do so to him as he has done to me: I will render to the man according to his work.
from Romans 12:19 · a strong link
And Absalom spoke to his brother Amnon neither good nor bad: for Absalom hated Amnon, because he had forced his sister Tamar.
from Proverbs 24:29
Whoever hates his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
from II Samuel 13:22
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and sexually immoral people, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
from I John 3:15
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.
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
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
from Psalms 73:25
For now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
from Matthew 5:8 · a strong link
But we all, with open face seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
from I Corinthians 13:12 · a strong link
According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
from II Corinthians 3:18 · a strong link
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from I Peter 2:16 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