a thread opens
Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. Look, how great a forest a little fire kindles!
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.
Then they said, Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.
from James 3:5
Your tongue devises mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.
from Jeremiah 18:18 · a strong link
Look, they belch out with their mouth: swords are in their lips: for who, say they, does hear?
from Psalms 52:2
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 said to me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
from Leviticus 10:3
Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you, and your fellows that sit before you: for they are men wondered at: for, look, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH.
from Isaiah 49:3
And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;
from Zechariah 3:8
Look, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwells in mount Zion.
from Isaiah 20:3 · a strong link
Then said the LORD to Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, you, and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the aqueduct of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;
from Isaiah 8:18
But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be its substance.
from Isaiah 7:3
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,
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
from Jude 1:24
You have heard how I said to you, I go away, and come again to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go to the Father: for my Father is greater than I.
from John 10:29 · a strong link
In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
from John 14:28
But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not to you at the beginning, because I was with you.
from John 14:2
For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.
from John 16:4
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
I have given them your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
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.
The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)
from Luke 2:14
And he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
from Acts 10:36
His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.
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?
The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some men count slowness; but is patience toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
from Luke 18:7
What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
from II Peter 3:9
Therefore you be witnesses to yourselves, that you are the children of them which killed the prophets.
from Romans 9:22
Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all people:
from Matthew 23:31
Truly you bear witness that you allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.
from I Thessalonians 2:15
But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.
from Luke 11:48
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
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
from Matthew 5:8
With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he look: why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
from Genesis 32:30 · a strong link
And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.
from Numbers 12:8
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from James 3:5 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