a thread opens
Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
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.
Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
from Lamentations 5:2
Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lies desolate, and you be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths.
from Isaiah 1:7
To fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
from Leviticus 26:34 · a strong link
Then the angel of the LORD answered, O LORD of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?
from II Chronicles 36:21
a thread opens
Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world works death.
from Acts 20:21
And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall mourn many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and sexual immorality and sensuality which they have committed.
from II Corinthians 7:10
Put to death therefore your members upon the earth; sexual immorality, uncleanness, passion, evil greedy desire, and greed, which is idolatry:
from II Corinthians 12:21
Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is without the body; but he that commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
from Colossians 3:5 · a strong link
To deliver you from the adulteress, even from the stranger who flatters with her words;
from I Corinthians 6:18
a thread opens
Be it known to you therefore, men and brothers, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins:
And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
from Acts 13:38
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
from II Corinthians 5:18
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 Romans 5:10 · a strong link
Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.
from Romans 8:32 · a strong link
Even as the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.
from Romans 4:25
For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
from Matthew 20:28 · a strong link
a thread opens
Because he has appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.
In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
from Acts 17:31
Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.
from Romans 2:16 · a strong link
Who are you that judge another man’s servant? to his own master he stands or falls. Yes, he shall be held up: for God is able to make him stand.
from I Corinthians 4:5
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For truly against your holy child Jesus, whom you have anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.
from Acts 4:27 · a strong link
There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
from Matthew 27:2
For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
from Luke 13:1
And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
from I Peter 4:17
a thread opens
You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do you.
In that you have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when you offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations.
from Acts 7:51
Thus says the Lord GOD; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger among the children of Israel.
from Ezekiel 44:7
So shall you know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.
from Ezekiel 44:9
In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS TO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar.
from Joel 3:17
And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.
from Zechariah 14:20
a thread opens
And he said to me, Depart: for I will send you far hence to the Gentiles.
But the Lord said to him, Go your way: for he is a chosen vessel to me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:
from Acts 22:21 · a strong link
For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office:
from Acts 9:15
As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.
from Romans 11:13
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God,
from Acts 13:2
And no man takes this honor to himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.
from Romans 1:1
And take to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, so that he may minister to me in the priest’s office, even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons.
from Hebrews 5:4 · a strong link
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Lamentations 5:2 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