a thread opens
Whereas you know not what shall be on the next day. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
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.
Look, you have made my days as a handbreadth; and my age is as nothing before you: truly every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
from James 4:14 · a strong link
Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passes away.
from Psalms 39:5
My days are like a shadow that declines; and I have withered like grass.
from Psalms 144:4 · 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.
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 heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and everything that moves in it.
from Isaiah 44:23 · a strong link
Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD has comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.
from Psalms 69:34 · a strong link
For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found in it, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
from Isaiah 49:13
Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.
from Isaiah 51:3 · 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,
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
Incline your ear, and come to me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
from Hebrews 13:20
And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said in this way, I will give you the sure mercies of David.
from Isaiah 55:3 · a strong link
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him.
from Acts 13:34
Since therefore the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
from Romans 6:9
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
When he makes investigation for blood, he remembers them: he forgets not the cry of the humble.
from Genesis 4:10
a thread opens
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And every creature in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be to him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.
from Luke 2:14
And I saw, and, look, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.
from Revelation of John 5:6 · 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?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies.
from Luke 18:7
He is near that justifies me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who is my adversary? let him come near to me.
from Romans 8:33 · a strong link
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
from Isaiah 50:8
For if God spared not the natural branches, watch out lest he also spare not you.
from Romans 8:32
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgment;
from Romans 11:21
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.
from II Peter 2:4
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.
He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
from Luke 14:26 · a strong link
Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
from Matthew 10:37 · a strong link
And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
from Matthew 22:37 · a strong link
But go and learn what that means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
from Mark 12:33 · a strong link
But he said to them, Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and they that were with him;
from Matthew 9:13 · a strong link
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from James 4:14 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