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For I know the plans I have for you,declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Thursday, June 25, 2026
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Third Plague: Gnats Bible Verse:Exodus 8:16-19 (The Message) "God said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and strike the dust. The dust will turn into gnats all over Egypt.’” He did it. Aaron grabbed his staff and struck the dust of the Earth; it turned into gnats, gnats all over people and animals. All the dust of the Earth turned into gnats, gnats everywhere in Egypt. The magicians tried to produce gnats with their incantations but this time they couldn’t do it. There were gnats everywhere, all over people and animals. The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is God’s doing.” But Pharaoh was stubborn and wouldn’t listen. Just as God had said" Message:
The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language was translated from the Greek and Hebrew by Eugene H. Peterson; he published it piecemeal over a period of eight years. The language is so informal that it often sounds like slang. His purpose was “to bring the New Testament to life for two different types of people: those who hadn’t read the Bible because it seemed too distant and irrelevant and those who had read the Bible so much that it had become ‘old hat’.”
The Message Bible
The Message is not a very accurate translation; Petersen was trying to create a document that would stimulate and encourage more than one that would be useful as a theological tool. Petersen himself stated quite clearly: The Message is not to be used for Bible study.
All Bible translators face a tension between accuracy and readability, called the “dynamic and formal equivalence spectrum.” The Message falls at the extreme end of the “dynamic” side. Again, as Petersen stated, The Message should not be read as teachable Scripture, but as an adjunct tool where appropriate: For fun, to get a fresh approach to a passage, as an introduction for people who cannot relate to more formal language, etc.
I hated it when I first read it, but I have gradually come to realize what Petersen meant by having a translation that might shake up people who were getting a bit jaded. Now, I get a kick out of it. The passage today is actually reasonably accurate, enough to learn the lesson of the verses fully.
Strike Three: Gnats
The third plague shows a clear progression in the nature of the signs given to, and inflicted upon, Pharaoh and the Egyptians. The frogs were irritating, but they did not physically attack people. The gnats go a step further, because they actually assault the body, getting into people’s eyes and noses. It is not a serious assault; the gnats do no harm. But still, there is a distinct difference between making the environment less comfortable, as in the first two plagues, and directly attacking people’s bodies.
The plague is also now higher-level, because it cannot even be reproduced by Pharaoh’s magicians, much less reversed or stopped. God is giving Pharaoh the chance to relent with a minimum amount of damage, raising the bar one step at a time. It is an Old Testament form of “progressive discipline.”
Meditation : Prayer : Now, to God the Father, who first loved us, and made us accepted in the Beloved; to God the Son, who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; to God the Holy Ghost, who sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts, be all love and all glory in time and to all eternity...Amen |
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