Formation Journal Reading Plan

Isaiah 4-5

4:1 Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread, and wear our own clothing: only let us be called by your name. Take away our reproach.”
4:2 In that day, Yahweh’s branch will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the beauty and glory of the survivors of Israel.
4:3 It will happen, that he who is left in Zion, and he who remains in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even everyone who is written among the living in Jerusalem;
4:4 when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from its midst, by the spirit of justice, and by the spirit of burning.
4:5 Yahweh will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy.
4:6 There will be a pavilion for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a refuge and for a shelter from storm and from rain.
5:1 Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.
5:2 He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in its midst, and also cut out a winepress therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
5:3 “Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard.
5:4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?
5:5 Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall of it, and it will be trampled down.
5:6 I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned nor hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”
5:7 For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.
5:8 Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!
5:9 In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.
5:10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”
5:11 Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!
5:12 The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.
5:13 Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.
5:14 Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it.
5:15 So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled;
5:16 but Yahweh of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.
5:17 Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.
5:18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope;
5:19 Who say, “Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!”
5:20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
5:21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
5:22 Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink;
5:23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!
5:24 Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
5:25 Therefore Yahweh’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them, and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.
5:26 He will lift up a banner to the nations from far, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.
5:27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:
5:28 whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.
5:29 Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver.
5:30 They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.

Psalm 76

76:1 For the Chief Musician. On stringed instruments. A Psalm by Asaph. A song. In Judah, God is known. His name is great in Israel.
76:2 His tabernacle is also in Salem; His dwelling place in Zion.
76:3 There he broke the flaming arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the weapons of war. Selah.
76:4 Glorious are you, and excellent, more than mountains of game.
76:5 Valiant men lie plundered, they have slept their last sleep. None of the men of war can lift their hands.
76:6 At your rebuke, God of Jacob, both chariot and horse are cast into a deep sleep.
76:7 You, even you, are to be feared. Who can stand in your sight when you are angry?
76:8 You pronounced judgment from heaven. The earth feared, and was silent,
76:9 when God arose to judgment, to save all the afflicted ones of the earth. Selah.
76:10 Surely the wrath of man praises you. The survivors of your wrath are restrained.
76:11 Make vows to Yahweh your God, and fulfill them! Let all of his neighbors bring presents to him who is to be feared.
76:12 He will cut off the spirit of princes. He is feared by the kings of the earth.

2 Corinthians 11:1-15

11:1 I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness, but indeed you do bear with me.
11:2 For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. For I married you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
11:3 But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
11:4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive, or a different “good news”, which you did not accept, you put up with that well enough.
11:5 For I reckon that I am not at all behind the very best apostles.
11:6 But though I am unskilled in speech, yet I am not unskilled in knowledge. No, in every way we have been revealed to you in all things.
11:7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you God’s Good News free of charge?
11:8 I robbed other assemblies, taking wages from them that I might serve you.
11:9 When I was present with you and was in need, I wasn’t a burden on anyone, for the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my need. In everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and I will continue to do so.
11:10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no one will stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11:11 Why? Because I don’t love you? God knows.
11:12 But what I do, that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them that desire an occasion, that in which they boast, they may be found even as we.
11:13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as Christ’s apostles.
11:14 And no wonder, for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light.
11:15 It is no great thing therefore if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.