a thread opens
Your neck is as a tower of ivory; your eyes like the pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim: your nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus.
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.
That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace:
from Song of Solomon 7:4
Your wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of your house: your children like olive plants all around your table.
from Psalms 144:12 · a strong link
Drink waters out of your own cistern, and running waters out of your own well.
from Psalms 128:3
Nevertheless, to avoid sexual immorality, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
from Proverbs 5:15
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
For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
from II Corinthians 7:10
Strive to enter in at the narrow gate: for many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
from Hebrews 12:17
Therefore all the more, brothers, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you shall never fall:
from Luke 13:24
For this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
from II Peter 1:10
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
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 II Corinthians 5:18
Therefore in all things it befitted him to be made like to his brothers, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
from Colossians 1:20
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 Hebrews 2:17
Fear none of those things which you shall suffer: look, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, so that you may be tried; and you shall have tribulation ten days: be faithful to death, and I will give you a crown of life.
from Hebrews 2:14
But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear to myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
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.
And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.
from Acts 17:31
Before the LORD: for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth: he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.
from Psalms 9:8 · a strong link
And I saw heaven opened, and look, a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he does judge and make war.
from Psalms 96:13 · a strong link
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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
I give you charge in the sight of God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession;
from Matthew 27:2
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
from I Timothy 6:13
Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own in the world, he loved them to the end.
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.
For circumcision truly profits, if you keep the law: but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision is made uncircumcision.
from Acts 7:51
Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
from Romans 2:25
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live.
from Jeremiah 4:4 · a strong link
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not burdensome.
from Deuteronomy 30:6
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
from I John 5:3
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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
Of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power.
from Acts 9:15 · a strong link
Who also has made us able ministers of the new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
from Ephesians 3:7
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do you, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
from II Corinthians 3:6
And for this cause he is the mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
from I Corinthians 11:25
Blessed is the man that endures temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him.
from Hebrews 9:15
That is the whole thread.
Every verse the cross-references reach from Song of Solomon 7:4 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