a thread opens
Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to 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.
But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
from Isaiah 41:1 · a strong link
Then I said, I am cast out of your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.
from Habakkuk 2:20
If they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have carried them captives, and pray toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, and toward the city which you have chosen, and toward the house which I have built for your name:
from Jonah 2:4
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.
And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them.
from Leviticus 10:3
And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the LORD.
from Exodus 19:22
And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.
from Exodus 24:5
And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, in which the LORD your God has blessed you.
from Exodus 18:12
You shall eat it before the LORD your God year by year in the place which the LORD shall choose, you and your household.
from Deuteronomy 12:7
You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain, or of your wine, or of your oil, or the firstlings of your herds or of your flock, nor any of your vows which you vow, nor your freewill offerings, or contribution of your hand:
from Deuteronomy 15:20
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,
Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
from Jude 1:24
And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fades not away.
from Hebrews 13:20
And every man that strives for the mastery is self-controlled in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown; but we an imperishable.
from I Peter 5:4 · a strong link
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith:
from I Corinthians 9:25 · a strong link
Brothers, I count not myself to have taken hold: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things behind, and straining forward to those things before,
from II Timothy 4:7
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 be surprised, my brothers, if the world hate you.
from Proverbs 29:27
If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
from I John 3:13 · 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 that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shone.
from Luke 1:79 · a strong link
For you were once darkness, but now are you light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
from Isaiah 9:2 · a strong link
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
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
Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain;
from Titus 2:3 · a strong link
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your often weaknesses.
from I Timothy 3:8
And do not get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit;
from I Timothy 5:23
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.
Who said to his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brothers, nor knew his own children: for they have observed your word, and kept your covenant.
from Luke 14:26
Neither shall he go in to any dead body, nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother;
from Deuteronomy 33:9
And the LORD said to Moses, Speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and say to them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people:
from Leviticus 21:11
And Moses said to Aaron, and to Eleazar and to Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither tear your clothes; lest you die, and lest wrath come upon all the people: but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, mourn the burning which the LORD has kindled.
from Leviticus 21:1
And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bore, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.
from Leviticus 10:6
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Isaiah 41:1 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