Formation Journal Reading Plan

21:1 Then Job answered,

21:2 “Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.

21:3 Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.

21:4 As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?

21:5 Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.

21:6 When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.

21:7 “Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?

21:8 Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.

21:9 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.

21:10 Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.

21:11 They send forth their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.

21:12 They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.

21:13 They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.

21:14 They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways.

21:15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’

21:16 Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

21:17 “How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?

21:18 How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?

21:19 You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21:21 For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?

21:22 “Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?

21:23 One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.

21:24 His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.

21:25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.

21:26 They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.

21:27 “Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me.

21:28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’

21:29 Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences,

21:30 that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led forth to the day of wrath?

21:31 Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done?

21:32 Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb.

21:33 The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.

21:34 So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”

55:1 For the Chief Musician. On stringed instruments. A contemplation by David. Listen to my prayer, God. Don’t hide yourself from my supplication.

55:2 Attend to me, and answer me. I am restless in my complaint, and moan,

55:3 Because of the voice of the enemy, Because of the oppression of the wicked. For they bring suffering on me. In anger they hold a grudge against me.

55:4 My heart is severely pained within me. The terrors of death have fallen on me.

55:5 Fearfulness and trembling have come on me. Horror has overwhelmed me.

55:6 I said, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then I would fly away, and be at rest.

55:7 Behold, then I would wander far off. I would lodge in the wilderness.” Selah.

55:8 “I would hurry to a shelter from the stormy wind and storm.”

55:9 Confuse them, Lord, and confound their language, for I have seen violence and strife in the city.

55:10 Day and night they prowl around on its walls. Malice and abuse are also within her.

55:11 Destructive forces are within her. Threats and lies don’t depart from her streets.

9:1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus Christ, our Lord? Aren’t you my work in the Lord?

9:2 If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

9:3 My defense to those who examine me is this.

9:4 Have we no right to eat and to drink?

9:5 Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?

9:6 Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work?

9:7 What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and doesn’t eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock, and doesn’t drink from the flock’s milk?

9:8 Do I speak these things according to the ways of men? Or doesn’t the law also say the same thing?

9:9 For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it for the oxen that God cares,

9:10 or does he say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should partake of his hope.

9:11 If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things?

9:12 If others partake of this right over you, don’t we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ.

9:13 Don’t you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar?

9:14 Even so the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the Good News should live from the Good News.

9:15 But I have used none of these things, and I don’t write these things that it may be done so in my case; for I would rather die, than that anyone should make my boasting void.

9:16 For if I preach the Good News, I have nothing to boast about; for necessity is laid on me; but woe is to me, if I don’t preach the Good News.

9:17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.

9:18 What then is my reward? That, when I preach the Good News, I may present the Good News of Christ without charge, so as not to abuse my authority in the Good News.