a thread opens
Gird yourselves, and lament, you priests: howl, you ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God: for the grain offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your 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.
Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the portico and the altar, and let them say, Spare your people, O LORD, and give not your heritage to reproach, that the pagans should rule over them: why should they say among the people, Where is their God?
from Joel 1:13
The grain offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn.
from Joel 2:17
But you shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves.
from Joel 1:9
And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, says the LORD.
from Isaiah 61:6
And has made us kings and priests to God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
from Isaiah 66:21
a thread opens
As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
from I Corinthians 8:4 · a strong link
I and my Father are one.
from Deuteronomy 6:4 · a strong link
For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one.
from John 10:30
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.
from I John 5:7 · a strong link
a thread opens
By this we perceive the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.
from I John 3:16 · a strong link
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.
from Philippians 2:17 · a strong link
For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:
from II Timothy 4:6 · a strong link
a thread opens
But the anointing which you have received of him remains in you, and you need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall remain in him.
For the truth’s sake, which dwells in us, and shall be with us for ever.
from I John 2:27
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
from II John 1:2
Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
from I John 1:8
If they sin against you, (for there is no man that sins not,) and you be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives to the land of the enemy, far or near;
from Proverbs 20:9 · a strong link
The LORD shall bring you, and your king which you shall set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known; and there shall you serve other gods, wood and stone.
from I Kings 8:46
Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.
from Deuteronomy 28:36
a thread opens
And God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, varieties of tongues.
Greet all your leaders, and all the saints. They of Italy greet you.
from I Corinthians 12:28 · a strong link
Obey your leaders, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.
from Hebrews 13:24 · a strong link
That you submit yourselves to such, and to every one that helps with us, and labors.
from Hebrews 13:17
And we beg you, brothers, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;
from I Corinthians 16:16 · a strong link
For they have refreshed my spirit and yours: therefore acknowledge you them that are such.
from I Thessalonians 5:12
a thread opens
I know also, my God, that you try the heart, and have pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of my heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy your people, who are present here, to offer willingly to you.
I the LORD search the heart, I try the inmost thoughts, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
from I Chronicles 29:17 · a strong link
Say to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.
from Jeremiah 17:10
And the LORD said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that are done in its midst.
from Isaiah 3:10
And I looked, and, look, a Lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with him a hundred forty-four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads.
from Ezekiel 9:4 · a strong link
a thread opens
Clean out therefore the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us:
And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he said, Look, the Lamb of God!
from I Corinthians 5:7
Looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
from John 1:36
For our citizenship is in heaven; from where also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ:
from Hebrews 12:2
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Joel 1:13 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