Formation Journal Reading Plan

12:1 Then Job answered,

12:2 “No doubt, but you are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.

12:3 But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you. Yes, who doesn’t know such things as these?

12:4 I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.

12:5 In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips.

12:6 The tents of robbers prosper. Those who provoke God are secure, who carry their God in their hands.

12:7 “But ask the animals, now, and they shall teach you; the birds of the sky, and they shall tell you.

12:8 Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach you. The fish of the sea shall declare to you.

12:9 Who doesn’t know that in all these, the hand of Yahweh has done this,

12:10 in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?

12:11 Doesn’t the ear try words, even as the palate tastes its food?

12:12 With aged men is wisdom, in length of days understanding.

12:13 “With God is wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding.

12:14 Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.

12:15 Behold, he withholds the waters, and they dry up. Again, he sends them out, and they overturn the earth.

12:16 With him is strength and wisdom. The deceived and the deceiver are his.

12:17 He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.

12:18 He loosens the bond of kings. He binds their waist with a belt.

12:19 He leads priests away stripped, and overthrows the mighty.

12:20 He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders.

12:21 He pours contempt on princes, and loosens the belt of the strong.

12:22 He uncovers deep things out of darkness, and brings out to light the shadow of death.

12:23 He increases the nations, and he destroys them. He enlarges the nations, and he leads them captive.

12:24 He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.

12:25 They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.

50:16 But to the wicked God says, “What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips,

50:17 since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you?

50:18 When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and have participated with adulterers.

50:19 “You give your mouth to evil. Your tongue frames deceit.

50:20 You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother’s son.

50:21 You have done these things, and I kept silent. You thought that I was just like you. I will rebuke you, and accuse you in front of your eyes.

50:22 “Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be none to deliver.

50:23 Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me, and prepares his way so that I will show God’s salvation to him.”

4:1 So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants, and stewards of God’s mysteries.

4:2 Here, moreover, it is required of stewards, that they be found faithful.

4:3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by man’s judgment. Yes, I don’t judge my own self.

4:4 For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord.

4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God.

4:6 Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another.

4:7 For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

4:8 You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you.

4:9 For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men.

4:10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor.

4:11 Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.

4:12 We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure.

4:13 Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.