Formation Journal Reading Plan

16:1 Then Job answered,

16:2 “I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!

16:3 Shall vain words have an end? Or what provokes you that you answer?

16:4 I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,

16:5 but I would strengthen you with my mouth. The solace of my lips would relieve you.

16:6 “Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?

16:7 But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made desolate all my company.

16:8 You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.

16:9 He has torn me in his wrath, and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

16:10 They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.

16:11 God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

16:12 I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.

16:13 His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my gall on the ground.

16:14 He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs on me like a giant.

16:15 I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.

16:16 My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids.

16:17 Although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

16:18 “Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.

16:19 Even now, behold, my witness is in heaven. He who vouches for me is on high.

16:20 My friends scoff at me. My eyes pour out tears to God,

16:21 that he would maintain the right of a man with God, of a son of man with his neighbor!

16:22 For when a few years have come, I shall go the way of no return.

17:1 “My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct, And the grave is ready for me.

17:2 Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.

17:3 “Now give a pledge, be collateral for me with yourself. Who is there who will strike hands with me?

17:4 For you have hidden their heart from understanding, Therefore you shall not exalt them.

17:5 He who denounces his friends for a prey, Even the eyes of his children shall fail.

17:6 “But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.

17:7 My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.

17:8 Upright men shall be astonished at this. The innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.

17:9 Yet shall the righteous hold on his way. He who has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger.

17:10 But as for you all, come on now again; I shall not find a wise man among you.

17:11 My days are past, my plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.

17:12 They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.

17:13 If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

17:14 If I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father;’ to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘my sister;’

17:15 where then is my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?

17:16 Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”

52:1 For the Chief Musician. A contemplation by David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, “David has come to Abimelech’s house.” Why do you boast of mischief, mighty man? God’s loving kindness endures continually.

52:2 Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.

52:3 You love evil more than good, lying rather than speaking the truth. Selah.

52:4 You love all devouring words, you deceitful tongue.

52:5 God will likewise destroy you forever. He will take you up, and pluck you out of your tent, and root you out of the land of the living. Selah.

52:6 The righteous also will see it, and fear, and laugh at him, saying,

52:7 “Behold, this is the man who didn’t make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.”

52:8 But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in God’s house. I trust in God’s loving kindness forever and ever.

52:9 I will give you thanks forever, because you have done it. I will hope in your name, for it is good, in the presence of your saints.

6:12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are expedient. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything.

6:13 “Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods,” but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.

6:14 Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power.

6:15 Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!

6:16 Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two,” says he, “will become one flesh.”

6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

6:18 Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

6:19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own,

6:20 for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

7:1 Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

7:2 But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.

7:3 Let the husband render to his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.

7:4 The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife.

7:5 Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

7:6 But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment.

7:7 Yet I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind.

7:8 But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am.

7:9 But if they don’t have self-control, let them marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn.

7:10 But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband

7:11 (but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife.

7:12 But to the rest I—not the Lord—say, if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she is content to live with him, let him not leave her.

7:13 The woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he is content to live with her, let her not leave her husband.

7:14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.

7:15 Yet if the unbeliever departs, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace.

7:16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?