a thread opens
All the days that he separates himself to the LORD he shall come at no dead body.
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.
You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
from Numbers 6:6
They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
from Leviticus 19:28
And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:
from Leviticus 21:5
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 I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honored upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD. And they did so.
from Leviticus 10:3
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 Exodus 14:4 · a strong link
For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who were long ago designated for this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into sensuality, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
from Romans 9:22 · a strong link
And that because of false brothers unawares brought in, who came in secretly to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into bondage:
from Jude 1:4 · a strong link
In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the pagans, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brothers;
from Galatians 2:4 · a strong link
But the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts.
from II Corinthians 11:26
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
For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
from Isaiah 55:3
For the righteous LORD loves righteousness; his countenance looks on the upright.
from Isaiah 61:8
He loves righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.
from Psalms 11:7
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.
The look on their faces bears witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe to their soul! for they have rewarded evil to themselves.
from Jude 1:11
But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
from Isaiah 3:9 · a strong link
And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
from Genesis 13:13
Look, the hire of the laborers who have harvested your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, cries: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts.
from Genesis 18:20
a thread opens
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do.
from Luke 2:14
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and breathed his last.
from John 17:4
And I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
from John 19:30
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?
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
from Luke 18:7 · a strong link
Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, 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 Revelation of John 6:10 · a strong link
Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did you at all fast to me, even to me?
from Zechariah 1:12
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of young bulls, or of lambs, or of he goats.
from Zechariah 7:5
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 Isaiah 1:11
Jesus says to them, Did you never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the cornerstone: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?
from Matthew 9:13
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
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
from Matthew 10:37 · a strong link
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
from Philippians 3:7
For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he has gained, when God takes away his soul?
from Matthew 16:26 · a strong link
But the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as a last breath.
from Job 27:8
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Numbers 6:6 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