a thread opens
Surely common people are vanity, and people of rank are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.
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, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: look, he takes up the isles as a very little thing.
from Psalms 62:9 · a strong link
But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to withstand his indignation.
from Isaiah 40:15
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
from Jeremiah 10:10
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 sea roar, and its fullness; the world, and they that dwell in it.
from Isaiah 44:23
A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s, and its fullness; the world, and they that dwell in it.
from Psalms 98:7
And Moses said to him, As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands to the LORD; and the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that you may know how that the earth is the LORD’s.
from Psalms 24:1 · a strong link
I stretch forth my hands to you: my soul thirsts after you, as a thirsty land. Selah.
from Exodus 9:29 · 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,
In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight:
from Jude 1:24 · a strong link
By which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
from Colossians 1:22
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
from Hebrews 10:10
Say of him, whom the Father has sanctified, and sent into the world, You blaspheme; because I said, I am the Son of God?
from John 17:19
The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.
from John 10:36
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.
Which have forsaken the right way, and have gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
from Jude 1:11 · a strong link
O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Acacia to Gilgal; that you may know the righteousness of the LORD.
from II Peter 2:15
And the LORD said to Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Therefore the name of the place is called Gilgal to this day.
from Micah 6:5
And they said to them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that were a reproach to us:
from Joshua 5:9
a thread opens
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
from Luke 2:14 · a strong link
And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled
from Colossians 1:20 · a strong link
Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
from Colossians 1:21
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?
Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusts in God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.
from Luke 18:7
And he spoke a parable to them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
from I Timothy 5:5
When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in to you, into your holy temple.
from Luke 18:1
Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy dwelling place, even to heaven.
from Jonah 2:7
A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
from II Chronicles 30:27 · a strong link
He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.
from Psalms 68:5
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.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives to the death.
from Luke 14:26 · a strong link
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now has come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brothers is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
from Romans 8:33 · a strong link
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, look, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
from Luke 22:31
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Psalms 62:9 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